Delvin's boots scraped against the polished obsidian floor as he turned, the sound echoing through the cavernous space like a whisper in a cathedral. He already knew who had spoken to him. The voice—gravelly, weighted with decades of accumulated wisdom and carefully guarded secrets—could belong to only one person.
George Senior stood fifteen feet away, backlit by the amber glow of the setting sun streaming through floor-to-ceiling windows. The light carved deep shadows into the lines of his face, making him look like a statue hewn from ancient stone. The air between them seemed to thicken, charged with an energy Delvin couldn't quite name. It prickled against his skin like static electricity before a storm.
