Morning light sharpened every edge of Aurelia's skyline, but inside Clock Tower the atmosphere was nothing but frayed.
Arkellin's car rolled up the front drive, black paint catching the reflections of flashing cameras. Paparazzi swarmed the steps, lenses aimed like rifles. Shouted questions cracked through the air.
"Mr. Andy, is it true Clock Corp funded assassins?"
"Are you here to protect the heirs—or use them?"
"Who's really pulling the strings, sir?"
Arkellin didn't flinch. He stepped out of the sedan, the cut of his suit black and clean, no tie, collar loose. His expression was cool, unreadable, as if the chaos around him were nothing more than rain on glass. A pair of his men cut through the crowd, shoulders broad, clearing his path with silent force.
Inside, the noise changed but didn't soften. Staff clustered in corridors, phones glowing with headlines and comments. Their voices dropped to whispers as he passed.
"…looked just like someone from logistics, didn't it?"
"If the Council got inside, then…"
"What if it's him? The outsider?"
Arkellin's stride didn't break. He moved like a blade through smoke, every step measured, every eye drawn to him even as mouths kept whispering.
By the time he reached the boardroom, the tension had curdled. The long glass table was littered with scattered papers and half-drunk cups of coffee. Directors argued across each other, voices raw.
"This is untenable!"
"Our name is bleeding in the press!"
"Did you see the photo? That man was ours. Ours!"
The noise fractured as the doors swung open.
Arkellin stepped in.
Silence fell hard. Even the shuffling of papers ceased. Directors turned, stiff in their chairs, caught between fear and fury. The neon of the city filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows, painting the room in a fractured light that shimmered across Arkellin's sharp profile.
He didn't sit immediately. He stood at the head of the table, hands resting on the glass, gaze sweeping across the room. Cold. Steady.
"Continue," he said. His voice wasn't loud, but it cut through what remained of the noise, demanding, inevitable.
No one did.
For the first time that morning, the chaos bent into silence—not because the panic had vanished, but because the man they whispered about was now in the room.
The silence cracked first under Mira's voice.
She rose from her chair, spine straight, every inch the heiress who had spent her life holding boardrooms like battlefields. The light from the tall windows traced her profile—sharp cheekbones, eyes burning behind her composure.
"This is manufactured." She dropped a stack of printouts onto the table, the pages spilling across the glass. Photos, timestamps, shipping manifests—evidence already collated overnight. "The assassin was never our employee. The Council planted this story to weaken us. If any of you had the discipline to look closer, you'd see the inconsistencies in the ID records. It's a smear campaign. Nothing more."
Murmurs flickered. Some directors leaned forward, scanning the documents. Others sat back, arms crossed, distrust etched deep in their lines.
A heavyset man at the far end scoffed. "Convenient, isn't it? Every mess tied to Clock brushed off as Council smoke. How long before the market stops buying that excuse?"
Mira's jaw tightened. She didn't blink. "The market will buy the truth if we hold our line. Waver now, and we give them the knife to finish us with."
Before another rebuttal could rise, Myra's voice slid in—smooth, teasing, but with a weight that didn't usually sit in her tone.
She swung one leg over the other, lounging back in her chair like she wasn't under the scrutiny of twelve directors. "You can argue spreadsheets all day. I'll keep it simpler." Her eyes found Arkellin, then flicked back to the table. "He saved me. If not for him, I wouldn't be here to drink your expensive coffee. That should be enough."
The room rippled. Gasps. Murmurs. Several directors exchanged glances.
One leaned forward, lips curling. "And what are we supposed to do with that, Miss Clock? Base corporate strategy on your… gratitude?"
Myra smirked, unbothered. "Maybe start by trusting the man who bleeds for us, instead of the vultures trying to bury us."
The tension coiled tighter. Mira's eyes cut toward her sister—half grateful, half furious—but she didn't undercut her. Not this time.
Arkellin, through it all, hadn't moved. He sat now, hands folded on the table, gaze steady, letting their words crash like waves against a rock. Not once did he raise his voice. Not once did he defend himself. He didn't need to.
It was the board that looked smaller under his silence, their fury feeding into unease.
And Mira, realizing it, seized the quiet with iron: "This smear only has power if we let it. I suggest we don't."
The words hung, sharp and decisive. But beneath the surface, suspicion still burned in the eyes of too many.
The trust wasn't won. Not yet.
The tension in the boardroom hung thick, stretched to a breaking point. Directors shifted in their seats, some glaring, some whispering under their breath.
Arkellin moved at last.
Without a word, he reached into his coat and set the small, bloodstained drive onto the table. Its metal casing caught the light, a faint red smear still visible along one edge. Conversations died instantly.
He slid it across the glass toward the console at the head of the room. A director started to protest—"What is—" —but Arkellin's gaze silenced him. The room obeyed his quiet command as the drive clicked into the port.
The wall screen flickered, code unraveling in sharp green streams. Then the static cleared.
A map of Aurelia spread across the glass wall—districts glowing in pale blue, docks and towers marked. A single red overlay pulsed across the city center.
Zoom.
Text scrawled across the map in stark white letters, bold, undeniable:
NEXT HIT — CLOCK HEIRS.
The room froze.
Chairs scraped as directors leaned forward. A few gasped. Others went pale. All arguments, all accusations evaporated in the face of that blunt declaration.
Mira's hand clenched around the armrest, her composure slipping for the first time. Myra, eyes wide, pushed back her chair and crossed the room before anyone could stop her. She reached Arkellin first, fingers curling around his arm, grip tight as though anchoring herself.
Mira followed slower, but when she stood beside him, she didn't let go either. Her hand pressed against his sleeve, elegant but trembling at the edge.
Arkellin stood tall between them, silent as the board stared, every eye waiting, terrified, desperate for a sign.
He looked down at Mira, then Myra, the contrast of their faces—one taut with fear hidden under steel, the other openly shaken, her lips parted in shock.
He lifted a hand, threading fingers gently through Mira's hair, smoothing it back from her temple. With the other, he brushed down Myra's cheek, settling in her dark waves, steadying her trembling. Both women leaned into the contact instinctively, two halves circling the same axis.
Then his voice came, low but carrying through the entire room, iron wrapped in calm:
"Don't be afraid."
His eyes swept the room, pinning directors, silencing whispers.
"I will not let anyone touch either of you. Not while I'm here."
The words struck harder than any argument. Mira's heart thudded, betraying her calm facade. Myra exhaled sharply, relief breaking into something deeper. And the board—skepticism and politics be damned—couldn't deny the conviction in his voice, the dominance in his presence.
The map still glowed behind him, red letters pulsing like a wound. But in that moment, it wasn't the Council's threat that commanded the room.
It was Arkellin.