No.
Not nothing.
Atme.
I feel his gaze like a physical weight. Heavy. Cold. The kind of look that saysthis is your faultandI will make you pay for thiswithout a single word. My skin prickles. My throat tightens. I focus on the coffee table, on the pattern in the rug, on anything except the ice-blue eyes burning a hole in the side of my face.
"Someone want to explain to me," Richard says, his voice deceptively calm, "how a business disagreement turns into a fistfight in my hallway?"
Silence.
Atlas shifts slightly. "I told you. I'd been drinking. Zero and I have different perspectives on the Tacoma situation, and I let it get out of hand. It won't happen again."
"The Tacoma situation." Richard repeats it slowly. Tasting it. Not buying it. "The Tacoma situation that you've been handling for six months without a single raised voice."
"It's been a stressful week."
"Has it." Not a question. Richard's eyes move from Atlas to Zero. "And you? You have nothing to say?"
Zero's jaw flexes. For a moment, I think he's not going to answer. Then—
"Atlas thinks he knows best. About everything. About the business. About how things should be run." His voice is flat. Controlled. But there's something underneath it, something coiled and waiting. "About who gets to make decisions in this family."
"And that's worth putting holes in my walls."
"Ask him."
Richard's attention swings back to Atlas. "I'm asking both of you. Because right now, I'm looking at two grown men who supposedly run a multi-million dollar operation, and I'm seeing a couple of teenagers who can't keep their hands to themselves."
Margot shifts beside the doorway. I'd almost forgotten she was there—quiet, watching, her arms wrapped around herself like she's trying to hold something in. Her eyes keep drifting to me. I can feel it. That worried, searching look she gets when she knows something's wrong but can't name it.
"Richard," she says softly. "Maybe we should—"
"I want an answer." Richard's voice hardens. "A real one. Not this business dispute bullshit you're trying to sell me."
The silence stretches. Pulls taut.
Zero's head turns.
Slow. Deliberate.
He's looking at me now. Full on. That dead-eyed stare that makes my blood freeze in my veins. His lip is swelling where Atlas hit him, dried blood still flaking at the corner of his mouth, and there's something in his expression that looks like a decision being made.
Like a threat being weighed.
"Maybe," Zero says, his voice dropping to something low and dangerous, "you should ask yourstepsonwhy—"
"It was my fault."
Atlas. Cutting in. Smooth and fast, his voice slicing through Zero's like a knife through silk.
Everyone turns to look at him.
He leans forward in the armchair, elbows on his knees, and meets Richard's gaze head-on. "I pushed too hard. Zero's been under a lot of pressure with the Northwest expansion, and I questioned his judgment in front of Bane. Publicly. It was disrespectful and unprofessional, and when he pushed back, Iescalated instead of backing down." He pauses. Lets the words land. "I was wrong. I apologize."
Richard stares at him.
Zero stares at him.
