Colt Harrow had worked alongside Valdris Varek for eight years and in that time he had developed a precise and comprehensive understanding of a man who did not particularly want to be understood.
He had learned the specific quality of silence that meant Valdris was working through a problem, versus the quality that meant he had already solved it and was simply waiting for the room to catch up. He had learned that the fractional tension in his jaw preceded a decision that would require difficult conversations, and that when Valdris stood at the window with his hands in his pockets he was not looking at the city but through it, at something internal that he had not yet decided to share and might never decide to share.
Colt had known him through two territorial conflicts, one internal pack
