Chapter 6: The Weight of Expectations

JULIAN

I thought I had her. Totally. Thought I had the upper hand. Project Chimera was the perfect cage and ultimate leverage. But I was wrong.

“Julian, regarding the zoning permits,” Ava spoke softly, almost a whisper, through the din in the war room. For the first time, I analyzed her closely. She wasn’t staring at me. Her eyes were pointed at the screens in front of her, a line between her eyebrows.

"What about them, Ava?"

I spoke in a dull tone. I held it together. Don't reveal anything. Just a test, right? Just a simple test.

“They’re… fast-tracked. Extremely fast-tracked.”

She turned to Caleb. His legs were propped on the corner of his desk, his arms crossed, a sneer on his face. Little bastard. “Almost like a bypass. Everything okay in this case?”

Her eyes locked with mine then. Cutting. Not frightened. Not awed. Just seeking. It smarted. It was supposed to be easy. She was just a pawn. A tool to control Caleb, to keep Marcus guessing, to resolve the chaos.

“Ava, you're new here,” I said, my voice rumbling. “Some things are done differently in Sterling.”

“Differently how?” she quickly retorted, not backing down. “Your eyes didn’t shift. ‘Different’ doesn’t describe questionable land use. It might describe leverage. A shortcut. But not the law.”

Caleb laughed, a sharp, bitter laugh. “See, Julian? Even she gets it.”

“I’m not naive, Caleb. I just. I do not comprehend. If it’s a good project, why skimp on it?” She was looking right at me. Not at Caleb, not at the monitors. At me. As if she could see into my soul and watch me piece together this very fragile mask of deceit. Brick by brick. Lie by lie.

“It’s a complex project, Ava,” I told her, attempting to wave it away, but the phrase sounded hollow to my own ears. Even to me.

“It’s complex, yes. But the base must be solid, right? If the permits are iffy, the entire project will implode. Legally speaking.” She paused. “A liability? Is that what we want?”

A liability. She said that I was a liability. It was the weaknesses that I had put inside that I handed her, and she labeled those liabilities. My gut clenched. No, not a liability. A failsafe. A back door. And escape clause in case everything fell apart. And control. But she was not foolish. She could see right through that.

Later, I came upon Victoria in her office, the door ajar. I went inside.

“Victoria.” My voice was gruff. “What’s your problem with Ava?”

“Julian, darling, my problem is always your problems,” she said, looking up from where she had been reading on her tablet, and smiling, the smile thin and cold. “And right now, Ava Thompson is your problem.”

Its questions, Victoria. They are acute. Too acute. I rubbed my temple. Caleb was simply Caleb; Caleb was manageable. Ava was different.

“Oh, she’s perceptive, I’ll give her that,” Victoria said, leaning back in her chair. “And convenient. Very convenient.”

‘Convenient for what?’ I snapped.

“For Marcus, of course.” She laughed, a dry rustle of leaves. “He brought her in, didn’t he? Just when you needed… a distraction.”

“It’s a distraction? Don’t be ridiculous.” It was said too hastily. Too defensively.

“Mine?” I scoffed. “

"Oh, don’t play dumb. You’ve been stalking her like a bird of prey since she entered the room. And Marcus. he knows how to push your buttons. He always has. Young, attractive, bright, pushing every button you have. You can’t resist him. He wants to unwind you. And the only way he knows how." Victoria rose from her seat, went to the window, staring out into the city.

“You're wrong,” I told her. I tried to tell myself. But the words, about me, spoken by Victoria, stuck. They were like a burr in the fur of an idiot dog. He was using Ava. Using my stupid plan for control as some pawn in his game. No. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. But everything Marcus did had layers. Motivations I never suspected until it was already happening.

I walked away, leaving Victoria to her city view. The seed was planted. A tiny, insidious seed of doubt. About Marcus. About Ava. About everything.

The war room was empty when I returned. Quiet. The monitors were all aglow with the fragile, faltering framework of Project Chimera. The AC hummed. A faint, residual aroma, sweet but not cloying, drifted through the space. Ava's perfume, I realized. It was. comforting. In this antiseptic, technologically advanced environment, it was a reminder of something more real. Something. living.

I sat down at her desk, the one she’d designated as hers. Her papers were laid out neatly before her. Too neatly. I picked them up one by one. Her writing was small and elegant. And her questions. So many of them. In the margins. Circled and underlined.

“Zoning permits, validity of review ASAP.” “Source of construction materials, ethical issues?” “Waterfront displacement, impact, long-term plan?”

She hadn't just questioned the zoning. She'd questioned everything. Every single little weakness, every corner I'd cut, every deliberate flaw I'd woven into the plan as a fail-safe, a way to pull the plug, a way to keep my options open. She saw them. She actually saw them. The flaws I'd put there myself. She saw the uncomfortable truth. She wasn't just a pawn. She was an eye. A sharp, unblinking eye that pierced through all my carefully constructed walls.

And for a moment, just a moment, I didn't want to eliminate her. I wanted to keep her close. To understand what else she saw. To understand… why this felt so unsettling. Why this felt like an opportunity. A dangerous, exhilarating opportunity. Something inside me shifted. Something I hadn't planned. Something Marcus definitely hadn't planned, if Victoria was right.