The office was quiet.
Bennett was still staring at Noel.
Cedric was still staring at Noel.
Noel looked back at both of them with the calm expression of someone who had already run through this sceeveral times in his head and found it satisfactory. He kept his hands loose in his lap and waited.
Inside, already three steps ahead.
He had been an actor long enough to know how a plot moved — where the twist came, where the audience expected one thing and the story delivered another, where the smartest move was to take control of the narrative before someone else did.
This was no different. The story had been written a certain way and everyone was following it dutifully — Rowan arrested, evidence mounting, execution pending — and the only way to break out of that ending was to write a different one.
He had been working it out since the pavement outside his father's company.
He let himself feel briefly, quietly satisfied.
Then Cedric spoke.
