Immediately, that was when Mr. Franklin then said, in the same calm, official tone that had now begun to sound almost merciless in how little emotion it carried against the rising humiliation in the room, "If you are ready, nod," and the moment those words fell, Otis, who had not shown the slightest trace of anxiety from the beginning of the contest until now, simply smiled and, with that same faint, controlled smile still resting on his face, nodded his head in quiet confirmation, while Sebastian, who by this point was no longer merely irritated or frustrated but deeply, desperately determined, stood there with the full realization pressing down on him that there was now no room left for failure, no room left for excuses, no room left for another embarrassing result, and so he nodded too, though the movement came with a visible hardness in his jaw and a tension in his shoulders that made it plain to anyone truly observing him that he was forcing himself to hold together what remained

At that moment in time, after the challenge had been made, after Sebastian had clung to that last explanation as though it were not merely an excuse but a lifeline, and after the room had adjusted itself around that new claim with all the eagerness of people desperate to believe there was still some ordinary reason behind the extraordinary scene they had witnessed, Penelope finally gave the instruction, and the force of her authority, though delivered without shouting, was such that the moment she spoke, the response was immediate, orderly, and almost military in its precision.No one questioned her.Immediately she gave the instruction, and the second she did, the attendants nearest to her moved at once, men who clearly knew better than to waste time once her voice had entered the matter, and they hurried away with the kind of rehearsed efficiency that suggested this was not a place ever caught unprepared. Because this was not merely a club in the simple sense of music and drinks and

At that moment in time, without wasting another second, Sebastian was still shaking so badly that it was becoming painful even to watch, because what had begun as strain had now turned into something closer to collapse, and it was clear to everyone standing around that he could no longer properly see what was happening in front of him, no longer process the pressure he was under, no longer maintain the illusion that this was somehow still within his control, and saliva was already dropping from the corner of his mouth as his body betrayed him in every visible way, his strength emptied, his balance failing, his pride hanging by threads so thin that even the spectators who disliked him could not help but recognize the raw humiliation of what they were witnessing.That was when Otis then said, in a voice so calm that it only deepened the contrast between them, "Well, I guess you are done now."And immediately, that was when he moved.There was no drawn-out effort from him, no theatrical

At that moment in time, while Melissa was still leaning close and trying to press her suggestion into Megan's mind before the chaos around them shifted again, Megan quickly whispered back to her, her voice low, strained, and full of the sort of frustration that only comes when a person feels cornered from too many directions at once, saying, "No. I don't know the plan which you have again. I just got myself in a very messy situation, and also I dragged Sebastian into a messy situation that I found myself in, and you want me to enter this matter again so that you can give me another instruction? No. I feel that is actually too much. I need to look for a way to get Sebastian out of this mess that he just found himself in. I need to look for a way to do so. Not what you are saying. I don't even... what you are saying doesn't sit right with me that much. Yes, it doesn't."The whisper came fast, but the emotion inside it was real, because for all Megan's earlier certainty, all her dismissi

At that moment in time, that was when Otis looked at Megan with the sort of expression that was difficult to read at first glance, because there was disappointment in it, yes, and irritation too, but beneath those there was something heavier, something almost tired, as though he had reached the point where being proven right about someone's bad judgment no longer felt satisfying, and he said to her, in a calm but unmistakably stern tone, "Well, I know what you are actually thinking about, and it made me very, very sad that, yes, your plan didn't work. Yes, you just basically want to get out of this marriage, and well, like I said to you before, like I said to you before, and I will repeat it again, you shouldn't be doing this. Yes, you shouldn't be doing this. And I've told you countless times, I'm not a patient kind of guy. Yes, I'm not really, really that patient, and you shouldn't be doing this. I don't know. I wouldn't be repeating myself over and over again."The words landed sha