The air in Adrian Cole's home office hung thick and stagnant, tinged with the faint reek of stale whiskey and cold sweat. He hadn't slept a wink. His designer shirt from yesterday sat wrinkled at the elbows, his hair formed a messy, uncombed disaster, and his bloodshot eyes stared daggers at the rain-streaked window, as if the storm outside owed him an explanation for the one raging inside him. Somewhere beneath the anger, a thin thread of panic had been pulling tighter all night, though he refused to call it by its name.
He held his phone so tightly against his ear that his knuckles had turned completely white, the plastic case creaking faintly under the pressure.
"Say that again," Adrian rasped, his voice raw from screaming at his assistant an hour earlier. "Say it again, slowly."
