The foyer was exactly what you'd expect from a place called Dominion Hall. High ceilings that made you feel small. Marble floors polished to a mirror shine. A sweeping staircase that curved up toward the second floor like something designed specifically to make an entrance, to command attention without asking for it. But it wasn't ostentatious. Just ... substantial. Likewhoever built this knew exactly how much was enough and stopped there, confident in the restraint.
We moved through hallways lined with art—some modern, some classical, all expensive in that quiet way that didn't need price tags—past rooms I couldn't see into, doors closed or half-open, voices drifting from somewhere deeper in the house. Low conversations. The sound of keyboards clicking. Someone laughing.
The place was alive. Occupied. Working.
Then, I saw it.
A massive tank built into the wall. Glass. Illuminated from within by soft blue light. And inside, coiled in the center like it owned the space and knew it, was a black viper. Scales gleaming like polished obsidian, eyes flat and unreadable, completely still except for the occasional flick of its tongue testing the air for threats.
I stopped.
Micah noticed, glancing back. "That's Obsidian. Team mascot."
"You keep a viper in the house."
"We keep a lot of things," he said.
I didn't ask what it symbolized. Didn't need to. A viper in a glass cage. Beautiful. Dangerous. Controlled but never tamed. Deadly if you forgot what it was, if you got careless, if you thought beauty meant safety.
Message received.
We kept walking.
Micah stopped at a set of double doors, dark wood carved with patterns I didn't have time to study, and pushed them open. He gestured me inside.
"The War Room."
I stepped in and immediately cataloged everything—old habits, ingrained training, automatic threat assessment even when there was no visible threat.
The room was huge. Easily fifty feet across, high ceilings with exposed beams that looked original, windows along one wall overlooking manicured grounds that stretched toward trees in the distance. But what dominated the space was the table. Massive. Dark wood. Polished to a shine that reflected the overhead lights back like dark water. And around it, twenty-two chairs. Leather. High-backed. Identical down to the stitching.
I counted. Twice.
The room could've fit more. Easily. Forty, fifty chairs if someone wanted. But someone had chosen twenty-two specifically. Deliberately. Like it meant something. At least, that’s what my mind told me.
There were signs of recent construction here, too—fresh paint on the walls, new fixtures in the ceiling, the faint smell of sawdust and varnish still lingering despite the ventilation working overtime to clear it.
This whole place felt new. Like it was still becoming whatever it was meant to be.
Micah closed the doors behind us with a soft click and gestured to one of the chairs. "Have a seat."
I sat, keeping my posture relaxed but alert, hands resting on the armrests, ready. He took the chair across from me, leaning back like this was a conversation between friends instead of a recruitment pitch I hadn't agreed to yet.
"So," he said, settling in. "We've heard about your talents."
"Have you?"
"Engineering. Custom builds. Problem-solving that doesn't show up in textbooks or manuals." He smiled. "The kind of work that saves lives when everything else fails. We're hoping you might consider coming to work with us."
Little red flags popped up in my mind immediately, bright and insistent.
I'd been expecting this. Some version of it. But expectation didn't equal comfort.
There were organizations that said they were on the up and up, only to turn out to be mercenary armies run by very bad men who did their best to look like knights in shining armor to the public. Groups that operated in shadows and called it patriotism. Men with money and ambition who thought rules didn't apply when you had enough of both.
I'd seen it before. Worked alongside people who'd been burned by it. Good operators pulled into bad situations by promises that sounded too good because they were.
I needed to make sure this wasn't that.
