The Chapel doors close behind me with that soft, heavy sound that always feels like crossing a line you don’t get to uncross. The air inside carries the familiar weight of leather and the gravity that settles over this room whenever the outside world gets shut out.
Church.
Every chair around the table is already filled. Cuts on backs, arms folded, boots planted like the floor owes them something. The stillness that comes after a war, when everyone is waiting to talk about what almost went wrong.
That’s what I expect this to be.
A debrief.
A reckoning.
A post-mortem on how close we came to getting buried under the Alliance’s mess.
I move to my usual spot against the wall, my shoulder finding the familiar groove in the plaster like my body remembers where it belongs, even if my mind hasn’t caught up yet.
Sin sits at the head of the table, one hand resting on the wood, his poker chip lying still for once.
Something about that feels off, but I don’t follow it.
This is business.
It has to be.
Damage assessment. Strategy. Lessons learned.
No one speaks.
Just a pause that hasn’t been filled yet.
Nitro didn’t even look at me when I entered, which is unusual enough that it flickers somewhere in the back of my mind. Ghost’s laptop is closed. Deek’s mouth is shut. Even Koa’s stopped bouncing off the walls for once, the entire room pulling itself tight while everybody waits to see what happens next.
I assume this is what the aftermath feels like. The kind of silence that follows when everyone is tallying up what it cost and what it didn’t.
Sin finally lifts his gaze to me.
It’s not the sharp, assessing look he gives when he’s about to dissect a situation. It’s not the warning look he gives when someone is about to get put in their place. It’s something heavier.
Two years of standing in rooms like this have taught me how to meet that look without shifting my weight or giving anything away that could be read as uncertainty. I hold it steady, hands loose at my sides, posture relaxed in the way that took me months to learn and years to perfect.
If this is about the Alliance fallout, I’m ready for whatever comes with it.
If it’s about what we did right, I’ll listen.
If it’s about what we did wrong, I’ll own it.
What I’m not prepared for is the way Sin leans back slightly in his chair, the movement slow, like he’s clearing space for something larger than a conversation about strategy.
“You know why you’re in this room?” he asks.
I don’t hesitate. “Alliance fallout. Figured we’d run the play back.”
A few heads shift.
A breath hitches somewhere to my left. Deek’s jaw twitches like he’s fighting something that wants out. Sin’s mouth moves at one corner, not quite a smile, not quite anything I can categorize.
“That’s part of it,” he says.
The easy atmosphere disappears fast.
