The Silence After the Storm
The boardroom had emptied of words. Cigarette smoke hung like a ghost, whiskey glasses sat half-drained, and the serpent-sealed envelope still lay unopened in the center of the table.
Jonas lingered at the edge, waiting to be dismissed, though no one had told him to stay. He watched titans shrink into whispers. Maggie Rowe stacked her papers with trembling precision. Daniel Okafor paced, muttering about fire in the streets. Lucien flicked ash as though mocking gravity itself.
Whitcombe stayed still, the weight of years pressing him into his chair. His cane tapped once, like a heartbeat.
And Catherine Haldane moved at last.
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The Envoy Moves
She crossed the room silently, heels clicking against marble. She left a second envelope on the table, slimmer than the first, sealed with the serpent's coil.
No words. No glance.
Jonas' throat tightened. He wanted to run, but his legs refused. He couldn't take his eyes off that envelope.
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The Message
Maggie broke the seal. Inside, one line of elegant handwriting:
"A king falls when a pawn forgets he is one."
The words rippled through the room like a gunshot. Lucien smirked, but even his cigarette trembled. Daniel muttered a prayer under his breath. Klein leaned back, as if he'd expected it all along.
Whitcombe read it twice, then a third time. His pale eyes lifted to the rain-smeared window.
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Whitcombe's Whisper
"Do you feel it?" he asked no one in particular. "The coils tightening? The boy thinks he's a spark. The Serpent knows better. He's already moving the pawns."
He turned his reflection in the glass, distorted by rain, into a confession.
"Every empire falls," he murmured. "But this one… this one won't fall the way we choose."
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Jonas' Horror
Jonas couldn't breathe. He thought of the dossier he'd carried, the weight of Michael Rivers' life pressed between paper. He thought of his daughter's drawing on the fridge, the colors bright and innocent. He thought of the Serpent, unseen, nameless, everywhere.
And he realized something chilling: pawns didn't just die for kings. Pawns died to prove a point.
The envelope seemed to glow faintly under the boardroom lights, as if mocking him.
Jonas turned to leave, footsteps echoing in the silence. He told himself he was free. But deep down, he knew: he had already been marked.
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