The word cuts clean through the room.
Tyrok leans forward slightly, reinforcing it without speaking.
“That’s not acceptable,” I continue. “And you knew it wouldn’t be.”
The Baronet’s composure tightens.
“Then why ask,” he says.
“So we could see exactly what you think you can get away with,” I reply.
The shift is immediate, not loud, but absolute.
“You miscalculated,” I say quietly.
“And you didn’t,” he replies.
“No,” I say. “I didn’t.”
The silence that follows presses in from all sides, and when Tyrok speaks again, his voice carries more weight than it did before.
“You pay now,” he says.
The Baronet looks between us, something in his posture shifting, not collapsing, but bending under pressure he didn’t expect.
“And if we don’t,” he asks.
I meet his gaze without hesitation.
“Then this becomes public,” I say. “And everything you’ve been protecting disappears.”
That lands.
His attendants glance at each other, tension breaking through their composure in small, visible ways.
He doesn’t look at them.
“How much time,” he asks.
“None,” I reply.
Tyrok doesn’t contradict me.
That’s what closes it.
The Baronet exhales slowly, the resistance draining out of him in a slow release.
“You’ll have it,” he says.
No escalation.
No force.
Just compliance.
The room doesn’t relaxafter the agreement settles, and the silence that follows feels different from the one before it,heavier, more aware, like something fundamental just shifted and no one is entirely comfortable with it yet.
Crew members exchange glances they don’t fully hide, their reactions mixed, curiosity cutting through skepticism, respect threading uneasily alongside something closer to resistance.
