The dining room at the Greenwich estate was built to swallow sound.
The walls were lined with heavy, seventeenth-century Flemish tapestries that absorbed the clatter of silver against porcelain, reducing the space to a sterile vault where even breathing felt too loud. A single, massive crystal chandelier hung low over the mahogany table, casting a sharp, unforgiving white glare down onto three untouched plates of turbot in wild mushroom reduction.
Victor Hawthorne sat at the head, the absolute anchor of the room. He was performing grandfatherly, paternal warmth tonight—a display so meticulously engineered it made Elias’s stomach turn. He smiled softly, his silver hair catching the light as he used a heavy silver knife to slice his fish with terrifying precision.
To his right sat Sophia.
