Scarlett fell silent, the quiet between them stretching like a live wire pulled taut, humming with unspoken implications. The polished marble of the lobby seemed to amplify the absence of sound.
"Dave thinks you're a risk," she said.
The words were flat, delivered without judgment but with the clinical detachment of a surgeon announcing a diagnosis.
Mike didn't flinch. He didn't shift his weight or defensive posture.
He simply met her gaze, his mind already cataloguing the implications. "To what?"
She looked at him steadily, her eyes dark and unreadable. "He didn't specify."
"Dave doesn't usually specify his assessments."
"He flags them, marks them as anomalies, and lets them sit in the periphery until they either resolve themselves or become unavoidable."
'He's hunting you,' Mike thought. 'He's not just protecting her; he's assessing the threat level of every variable in her orbit.'
'And right now, I'm the largest variable he's encountered.'
