Joy by nature was a straightforward person.
She didn't enjoy playing games, never used underhanded tricks, and had always prided herself on honesty, even brutal honesty.
She was the kind of woman who would march straight to the Empress herself if she thought something was wrong, even if it meant risking her own position.
That was Joy—unyielding, transparent, impossible to bribe or bend.
But Cassius...Cassius was different.
He was her greatest frustration. The one man she could not pin down.
For months, she had tried to find evidence against him. Proof of his corruption, his deceit, anything to justify the conviction that he was no ordinary man, but some sort of devil in disguise.
Yet every attempt failed.
Every lead evaporated.
Every supposed 'crime' turned out to be nothing but rumor and coincidence.
It infuriated her.
No matter how certain she was that Cassius was hiding something dark, there was nothing she could legally or spiritually use to condemn him.
