KAIREN
The silence after my father's call was a different creature. It wasn't the sharp, angry silence of the morning.
It was heavy, prescient, like the air before a storm you know will flood the city. Viktor had come back into the office after taking the call, his face carved from the same impassive granite as always. But I'd seen the way his knuckles had whitened around his phone for a split second before he'd pocketed it.
He didn't tell me what the call was about. Of course he didn't. We were back to that. The wall was up, higher and thicker than before, and I was too tired, too confused, and too fucking hurt to try and scale it.
Now I was perched on the stool like it was a throne, arms crossed, watching Viktor move around the kitchen with that same unyielding focus he brought to everything.
