The mask fell away completely.
What emerged underneath was not rage. Not fury. Not even hate.
It was recognition.
The recognition of a predator that has finally been given permission to stop pretending.
He rose from the desk.
Slowly.
Unfolding with the kind of liquid, deliberate grace that made every instinct in the room scream apex. Derek's boys took an involuntary half-step back—didn't even realise they'd done it—spines prickling, guts clenching, lizard brains firing the same primal telegram over and over.
Run.
He wasn't doing anything. Just standing. Just looking at them with eyes that had shifted from impossible purple to something darker, deeper—slitted now, glowing faintly in the shitty fluorescent light like bioluminescence in deep ocean trenches.
But the air had changed.
Thickened.
