Elena's POV
"You look like you could use an escape."
Victor set his coffee down on the edge of my desk, uninvited as always, and studied me with an expression that managed to be both amused and calculating in equal measure. Ruth had disappeared toward the file room the moment he arrived, muttering something about paperwork that fooled absolutely no one.
"I'm fine," I said, which had become something of a reflex at this point, a word I reached for so automatically it barely registered as a lie anymore.
"You're not, but I admire the commitment to the bit." He glanced toward Damian's closed door, then back at me, something calculating settling behind his easy smile. "Come get real coffee with me. Not the sludge from the break room. There's a place two blocks over that actually knows what
