Titus quirked a brow. “That him?”
Walt gave a quick nod, his gaze flicking toward the glass. “He knows you’re here.”
Titus snorted, sounding bored.
Walt’s attention returned to him with the exasperated affection of someone who’d watched him self-destruct in a dozen different ways.
“Don’t be reckless,” he said.
“I’m forty-eight,” Titus murmured.
“Exactly why I’m saying it,” Walt countered. “You’re still capable of doing something stupid.”
Titus didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.
His gaze followed where Walt’s had gone a moment earlier—then tracked across the lounge, up toward the executive office tucked behind tinted glass, private and reserved for only a select few.
Elias Harrington stood there—seventy-three but looking a decade younger, immaculately kept, blue eyes capable of cutting a man to pieces.
Their gazes collided and held, neither one blinking.
He wondered who else might be lurking behind that glass.
A moment later, his father finally turned away.
It didn’t surprise him—he’d been faced with that man’s back more often than any acknowledgment.
Unless, of course, his father wanted something.
Then it was a different story entirely.
Turning from the window, Elias Harrington held out his hand. A phone was placed in his palm, and he jerked his head toward the door.
His bodyguards and assistant slipped out, the soft click of the latch falling into silence.
Lorraine didn’t look away from the glass—standing just far enough back to remain unseen from the lounge below. Tall, impeccably kept, her beauty was cold and precise: high cheekbones, a refined jawline, razor-blue eyes that could flay a man without a word. Tailored silk in muted tones, jewelry as understated as it was expensive. She wore sophistication like armor, holding herself with the quiet authority of a woman who shaped powerful men and buried weaker ones.
“He’s harder than before.”
His jaw tightened. “He’s had to be.”
“I told you he would do what needed doing,” she murmured.
Elias said nothing.
He paced once—slow, deliberate—passing the long mahogany table where a half-finished glass of single malt waited. He didn’t reach for it.
Instead, he stared at the reflection in the dark glass again, Titus’s stare echoing like an old bruise. Too much of me in him. Too much fire.
He dialed and waited while the line rang.
The secure line on William Caldwell’s desk lit up—no ID, no routing. Only a handful of people had the authority to override the Pentagon’s encryption tree.
Senator Elias Harrington was one of them.
Caldwell answered. “Senator.”
The voice that came through was controlled, unhurried—a man who’d commanded boardrooms and backrooms his entire life. Elias didn’t waste time. He never did.
