Chapter 17: Glass Office

The glass conference room was designed to make people feel observed.

Frosted panels on three sides. A long table that reflected the overhead lights in pale rectangles. Chairs that pretended to be ergonomic and failed. A wall clock with a second hand that ticked loud enough to become a character in any interrogation. Outside the frost, shadows of staff moved like fish behind aquarium walls. Inside, Vivian Steele sat with her tablet, two binders, and a cup of black coffee she did not drink so much as guard.

Leo took the seat she indicated—not across from her at first, but at an angle, the place for the subject rather than the peer. He let it happen. Power sometimes meant accepting the chair you were given until you owned the room anyway.

“Personnel interview,” she said without preamble. “Recorded notes, not audio. If you lie, I will find it in the paper even if I miss it in your face. Understood?”

“Understood.”

She began.

Hiring authorization. Budget codes. Prior employment. The logistics company that had shorted his pay—Manager Holt’s name still tasted like old blood in Leo’s mouth, though the man had already paid ten thousand dollars under Presence and Suggestion and the particular terror of a subordinate who stopped being small. Leo gave Vivian a cleaned version: unstable work history, a near-death, a building that had become a second chance. He did not mention the system. He did not mention Faith Points. He did not mention the way Maya said Leader in the dark as if the word itself were a drug.

Vivian’s questions tightened.

“Why does Maya Parker pay you out of accounts that are not payroll?”

“She’s helping me stabilize. The paperwork is catching up.”

“That’s a story people tell when the paperwork is the crime.”

“Or when life moves faster than forms.”

She looked at him over the tablet. Fluorescent light made a thin shine on her lower lip. “You almost died. Hit-and-run. There’s a police report—thin, unfinished. You didn’t push it.”

His stomach dropped once. He kept his face mild. “I was busy surviving.”

“Surviving into a consulting line and a landlady’s bed.” Her mouth curved without kindness. “Forgive me if my sympathy has limits.”

Presence rose in a thin layer—enough to warm the air, not enough to scream power. The glass room seemed to shrink by a degree. Vivian’s fingers paused on the screen. She did not know why. She blamed the coffee, the air-conditioning, the man across from her who should have been sweating and was not.

“People don’t rewrite reality for parasites,” she said, “unless the parasite is very good.”

“Or unless the person was lonely,” Leo answered, and watched color rise at the base of her throat again. The Mark hummed. His own mouth went dry. He took a slow breath through his nose and tasted toner and her sharp perfume.

[CONVERSION PROGRESS: 8%]

He let the number sit without greed. Early percentages were seeds. Seeds needed weather, not a fist.

They went through vendor lists. He fetched a binder from the cabinet when she asked, standing close enough as he set it down that her shoulder almost brushed his chest. She did not step back. Pride refused retreat more than desire requested proximity—for now the two looked the same from outside.

“Sit,” she said.

He sat.

“Explain this timestamp.”

He explained. Half-truth. She caught a seam and smiled—small, professional, almost pleased. He let her have the victory. Being hunted by someone competent made him feel real. Sweat cooled along his spine under the soft shirt. He liked the feeling. He filed that liking away as dangerous and useful both.