Eight fifty in the morning.
Scaffolding covered the outer walls of Vought Tower. Emergency repairs had continued through the night, and welding sparks occasionally showered down from above. But those bent steel bars still jutted starkly into the air, the remains impaled on them still swaying in the wind.
No one dared touch them.
Even the crews clearing the rubble tacitly skirted that area, afraid that so much as another glance would bring trouble down on them.
Eight fifty-five. Conference room one.
This was normally reserved for Vought's highest board of directors, originally furnished with just thirty leather chairs. Now it was as crowded as a refugee camp. People filled every seat along the long table, while dozens upon dozens stood packed into the aisles, the corners, and even behind the doors.
Defense industry giants, media moguls, pharmaceutical oligarchs, representatives of Wall Street's leading financial groups. Any one of them could have sent the Nasdaq index trembling, yet now they could only stand awkwardly, not even daring to breathe loudly.
The room was unnaturally quiet. No whispered conversations, no exchanged pleasantries.
Only heavy breathing and the occasional scuff of shifting feet.
News of last night had long since spread. An elite team of Supe assassins, and even a US Air Force base, along with its fortified underground bunker, had been obliterated by a tornado of metal. The Pentagon hadn't dared so much as make a peep. Even the intercontinental missile silos had been locked down.
They hadn't come to negotiate today. They had come to await judgment.
Nine o'clock sharp.
The heavy rosewood double doors swung open.
Hundreds of gazes turned toward the doorway at once, then dropped as though shocked by electricity the instant they caught sight of that figure.
Lucian walked in.
He was dressed casually today, in