The room is silent again, but it is a different kind of quiet now. The air has shifted. Every man here is recalculating.
Creekmore steps in closer, jaw tight, eyes sharp with insult.
“You don’t get to make unilateral calls like this, Herron. You’re not above the chain of command.”
I hold his gaze. “I’m not beneath it either.”
His voice rises, no longer calm. “This isn’t a personal playground. You don’t get to marry the daughter of a Legacy member just because you feel like rewriting protocol. The next time you act without clearance, there will be consequences.”
I don’t blink.
“You’ll have to get in line.”
Creekmore’s lip curls, the threat in his eyes undisguised now, but I challenge him anyway.
“We’ll be at the ceremony.”
Before a higher-ranked Chairman can intervene, I speak again.
“There’s more at stake than one girl and her bloodline. You think I’m reckless, but I’m the one with my hands in the dirt. And when this is over, when I put the final piece on the table, you’ll understand why I made the call.”
Saxton raises a brow, interested now. “And what final piece would that be?”
I look around the room, deliberate and slow.
“I have information on the Huntington-Russell family. Something no one else in this room has. Something that cannot be shared yet. But when it drops, it will reframe everything we know about my assignment.”
Creekmore looks like he’s about to explode. “You’re bluffing.”
“I’m not,” I say. “And every decision I’ve made will make sense in the end. Every tough call will be worth it. I guarantee it.”
A long beat of silence.
Then Archie, who’s been leaning against the far wall with the smug detachment of a bored aristocrat, finally speaks.
“Well, if we’re throwing around family secrets and impromptu marriages, I’d like to confess I once slept with a Taft cousin on a dare.”
Hudson Taft turns to him, visibly disgusted. The Tafts are a large family with multiple siblings and cousins attending Eulogia, “Which one of my sisters, you bastard?”
“I never learned her name,” Archie replies with a wink. “But she was lovely.”
Even Creekmore can’t hide the flicker of disdain as the room shifts from fury to uneasy amusement.
But I don’t laugh.
I keep my eyes on the altar, the flame, the men who will try to test me now.
Let them.
They think they know how far I’ll go, but honestly, they don’t.
Not yet.
Creekmore isn’t done. I can see it in the set of his jaw, the way his hand curls into a fist at his side. He steps forward again, crowding the space, daring me to flinch.
“You’re going to need to give us something,” he says, voice low and cutting. “You went against the directive, broke the chain of command, and married without permission. That’s not loyalty, Herron. That’s disobedience, whether she’s a Legacy in this Society or not.”
My expression doesn’t change. “I’m aware of what I’ve done.”
