Elena's POV
"It was nothing."
Damian's voice carried exhausted relief the next morning, though the tension still lingering in his shoulders told a different story than his words. "Victor's 'evidence' turned out to be an old zoning dispute buried in some outdated filing. He tried to spin it into something threatening, but the council saw through it within twenty minutes."
"Then why did he ask for me by name?"
"Intimidation, probably. Or he wanted to see how you'd react under pressure." His jaw tightened, frustration bleeding through the relief. "Either way, it cost us most of the night and accomplished nothing beyond raising everyone's blood pressure."
I nodded, though something about the anticlimax didn't sit entirely right, a nagging unease that Victor rarely wasted this much effort
