I'm aware of Olivia in the corner. She's still looking at her book, and still not turning and pages.
"My head is right," I say.
Cain looks at me for a long moment. The look that’s never once let me get away with anything.
"You've got a lot on," he says. "Nobody in this room would think less of you for?—"
"My head is right, Cain."
He holds my gaze for another beat. "If it's not, I'll do it."
The room goes quiet in a different way, and I hear Milo laugh, even my dad lets out a chuckle.
"You—" Mason starts.
"Don't," Cain says, without looking at him.
"I'm just?—"
"Mason." The warning makes everyone smile in the room.
Miles looks at Cain with an expression that is carefully, professionally neutral and is absolutely covering something up. Lileah is staring at him like she's seeing something she's never seen before.
And Cain looks at all of us, one at a time, with the expression of a man who has run entirely out of patience for being underestimated.
"Before any of you existed," he says. "Before there was a list, before there was a system, I knew this business better than you will ever know it." He pauses. "So, the next person who looks at me like I just said something surprising can fuck off."
Complete silence.
Cain glances at Olivia, and the corner of his mouth moves in something that isn't quite a smile, but is nearly one, and he picks his cup back up like he didn’t just offer to kill my target for me.
"My head is right," I say again, quieter this time. "Patrick Holt is mine. I've been waiting for this longer than he has any idea."
Cain nods once. Final, settled.
"Two weeks," he says. "I'll have the details to you by the end of the week."
"I'll be ready."
He looks at me one more time, like he’s looking deep into my soul...
"I know you will," he says.
After Cain leaves, I move to Olivia's chair and crouch down in front of her so we're level. She looks at me; her eyes look tired.
"You okay?" I ask.
"I heard what you said to him," she says quietly. "About your head being right."
"Yeah."
She searches my face. "Is it? Really?"
"Yeah," I say. "It really is."
She holds my gaze for a moment longer.
Then she reaches out and puts her hand against the side of my face, just for a second. Her thumb at my cheekbone. There’s something in her eyes that I can’t place.
