The three of them walked in comfortable silence for a moment. The pavement was quiet, only the distant sound of traffic filling the space between them.Alvin glanced between Logan and Ava, and something in his expression shifted toward quiet amusement. He had spent years hearing things about Logan through other people, fragments and rumors, most of them unflattering. The man walking beside him now shared almost nothing with that version."You know," Alvin said, "people at school used to say you were unremarkable."Ava let out a short laugh. "People at school were idiots.""I'm not disagreeing." Alvin smiled. "I'm just saying the gap between what people thought and what's actually true is." He searched for the word. "Significant.""Most gaps are," Logan replied."Does it bother you? That people spent so long getting you wrong?"Logan considered that honestly. "It used to. Now I find it useful.""Useful how?""People who underestimate you stop watching carefully. They think they already

Alvin nodded, his eyes still carrying that trace of surprise.“That’s Liam Torres,” he said. “Senior government official. One of the most powerful ones currently serving.” He paused. “Not the kind of name you hear casually.”Ava stared at him. “Government?”“Very high up.” Alvin glanced toward Logan and Torres, then back at her. His expression shifted slightly, something amused moving into it. “Here’s the part you’ll find interesting.” He leaned just slightly closer and lowered his voice. “Liam Torres is Alex Smith’s direct superior.”Ava turned and looked at the two men with completely different eyes.Torres was still talking, his posture attentive, his body angled toward Logan with the subtle deference of someone in the presence of a person they ranked below. Logan stood straight, relaxed, his hands easy at his sides, his expression the same calm and unhurried look he wore everywhere. He wasn’t performing authority, he wasn’t leaning into it. He was simply standing the way he alway

Logan and Torres stopped at a point in the corridor where the nearest guests were far enough away that a low conversation would carry no further than the two of them. The noise from the ballroom was a muffled backdrop, present but distant.Torres turned to face him, his expression now fully attentive, all social performance set aside. “What is it?”Logan was quiet for a beat. The ease that had carried him through the entire evening was still there in his posture, but the warmth had left his eyes. He looked at Torres with a calm, level gaze that had nothing casual in it.Then he placed a hand on Torres’s shoulder.It was not a rough gesture. It was measured and deliberate, the kind of contact that communicated a shift in the terms of a conversation without requiring any additional explanation. Torres registered it. Something in his expression became very still.“Alex Smith,” Logan said. The honorific was gone. His voice was flat and cold, each word placed carefully. “Do you know him?”

Torres waited.Logan was quiet for just a moment, the kind of pause that wasn’t hesitation but preparation, the beat before a statement that needed to land cleanly.“Springlife Healthcare Inc,” he said. “The construction and development project. I don’t want Alex Smith anywhere near it.”Torres stared at him.The words were simple. There was no elaboration attached to them, no supporting argument, no softening. Just the statement, flat and final, sitting in the air between them like something that had already been decided and was simply being communicated now as a formality.“That project is already in motion,” Torres said carefully. “Smith has been involved in the early groundwork. Removing him at this stage would require”“I understand what it would require,” Logan said. “I’m not asking you to explain the logistics. I’m telling you what I want.”Torres looked at him. He was quiet for longer this time, the silence of a man running calculations behind a composed face.He thought about

Back inside the ballroom, the atmosphere had changed.It was subtle at first, the kind of shift that didn't announce itself but that everyone present registered without being able to name the source. The energy that had carried the evening through its earlier hours had gone flat, the conversations thinner, the laughter less frequent, the general sense of occasion slowly deflating like something with a slow leak.The reason was not difficult to find.Alex Smith had not recovered from earlier in the evening.He was still on the podium, seated in the chair that had been reserved for him, but he was no longer performing. The version of Alex that had commanded the room earlier, warm and polished and effortlessly drawing people into his orbit, was gone. What sat in that chair now was a man who was somewhere else entirely, his jaw tight, his eyes moving around the room without settling on anything, his glass turning slowly in his hand.The people nearest him had noticed. The conversations a