Page 103 of Oath
Ten more seconds passed.
Fifteen.
Then it opened.
He stepped out.
I caught the moment he saw me, froze like he’d touched a live wire. Color gone. Forehead glistening. His hair, so perfectly slicked back earlier, now looked slightly damp at the roots.
He hadn’t just peed. He’d tried to regroup.
Didn’t work.
I tilted my head, slow and deliberate, watching him. Reading him.
He wiped his palms on the sides of his pants. The folder in his left hand was crumpled at the edge now. Not enough to be obvious to a judge or client.
But I saw it.
“You following me now?” he asked, voice low, brittle around the edges. He didn’t step back, but he didn’t come closer either.
“I’m observing,” I said, letting Amorette’s cadence slide out—smooth, educated, just cool enough to cut. “It’s a free hallway, isn’t it?”
He glanced around, like someone might pop out of the shadows to save him. No one did.
Because no onecould.
“I don’t know what kind of game you think you’re playing,” he said, trying to recover that clipped tone lawyers used when pretending they weren’t panicking. “But if you’re looking for some kind of settlement or blackmail opportunity?—”
“Mark.”
His name stopped him cold. NotMr. Sinclair.
JustMark. Familiar. Personal. Dangerous.
“You should be very careful about assuming what I’m after.” I stepped away from the wall, slowly, not closing the distance, not threatening, justpresent. What had Legend called me? A grenade with the pin out?
He backed up half a step. Not much. Just enough.
His throat worked. “I don’t know who the hell you think you are?—”
“You do,” I said, and this time I let it slip, just afractionof heat behind the words. “That’s why you’re sweating.”
He looked like he wanted to argue. But he didn’t. Couldn’t.
So I nodded, gave him one more look, and stepped past him. My shoulder brushed his sleeve, and he flinched like I’d burned him.
I kept walking.
Didn’t look back.
Not even when he turned to watch me go.
I didn’t go far.
Turned the corner, past the elevators, into a shallow alcove near the stairwell—just far enough to be out of sight, just close enough to keep eyes on the hallway.
Sinclair hadn’t moved. He was still standing in front of the bathroom like he wasn’t sure whether to run or pass out.
