Cain looked at her, and for an instant, the weight of a hundred unspoken things pressed between them—the ghost of old trust, the echo of something softer now calcified to stone. Then it was gone, burned out in the furnace of his will.
"We turn the thread." He straightened, hands sliding from the table to clasp behind his back. "They've cast their line. Good. We'll bite—just enough to let them think they have us hooked."
Hunter's mouth curved, almost imperceptible. He understood.
Susan frowned, confusion etched deep. "You want to lead them on?"
"I want to lead them blind," Cain said. "Every step they think they're guiding, every door they think they're opening—those will be the doors we've already locked behind them."
Roselle tilted her head, voice low. "And if they're better at the game than you think?"
Cain's smile was a shadow, a thing with edges. "Then I stop thinking."
The silence that followed was heavy enough to crack bone.
