Time/Date: Mid-Morning, TC1853.01.10
Location: Brenner Estate, Lord Garrick's Private Quarters
The words hung in the air like a blade suspended over all their heads.
We can't allow those DNA tests to proceed.
Isolde's breath caught. Not with surprise exactly—more like confirmation of something she'd been dreading. "You want to destroy evidence in an active police investigation?"
"I want to buy us time," Garrick corrected, and there was something in his voice that made Edmund's stomach clench. The precision of someone who'd spent seventy years finding loopholes in contracts and laws. "When the Empire Medical Research Center discovers the samples are compromised, they'll request fresh collection under supervision. Which gives us..." His pale eyes went cold as winter stone. Hard. Calculating. The eyes of a man who'd made difficult decisions before and would make them again. "An opportunity."
The unspoken words hung heavier than anything actually said.
