Back inside the warehouse, a tense silence thickened the air—heavy, suffocating. Lilac shifted uneasily as the prolonged stare-off between Reeve and Stanley dragged on, the tension between them pulsing like a ticking time bomb.
Despite being cornered—warned, threatened, and bloodied—Reeve remained infuriatingly silent. His lips, cracked and stained with dried blood, stayed stubbornly shut. Not even the looming promise of death seemed to shake him.
Stanley, the embodiment of cold, controlled menace, stood still as a statue. His striking face remained unreadable, but Lilac didn't miss the twitch in his jaw or the darkness creeping into his eyes. His patience was hanging by a thread.
The silence scraped at her nerves.
"How long are you two going to keep staring at each other?" Lilac snapped, her voice sharp enough to slice through steel.
