Schiller withdrew his gaze from Lex.
But Lex felt the air in the room suddenly grow heavy.
This was an extremely bad sign. Lex suddenly realized what he had just been doing. He had tried to look wounded by Schiller's rejection, hoping Schiller would feel guilty and waver because of it.
God, what was he doing? Trying to influence a psychology expert psychologically?
Then he instantly came to his senses. This surely was not some idiotic decision caused by eating too much salmon and getting brain parasites. Uneasily, he looked at Schiller.
"I've been considering a question, Mr. Luthor." Schiller did not look at him, staring instead at the plate before him. "A question I've been considering ever since you made your request. Why 'godfather'?"
"My father was a devout Catholic..."
"You want me to atone for killing him?"
Lex's hair stood on end.
He did not know how to describe the sensation of that instant. In any case, if he did not finish his sentence—or if Schiller did not wish to hear the rest of it—the main course of their next meal would not be salmon.
"What I mean is, while he was alive, I once heard him say that I couldn't have a godfather, or someone would notice that there was something unusual about me. He even killed two priests over it."
The air loosened slightly.
When Lex's shoulders finally sank, he looked like someone who had just been dragged out of the water.
No, he wasn't the professor. As Lex's reason recovered somewhat, he realized that the situation had changed completely. He was standing between two rows of a lion's teeth. He could still hold them apart only because the lion was not hungry yet.
But he could not ignore the elephant in the room because of