He watches me pace in front of him.
I can feel his eyes tracking every step.
“You’re making a lot of noise,” he says, voice silk over rot.
“Noise is kind of my brand,” I reply without looking at him.
I’m not here to trade insults. I’m here to prepare him for a hearing that could blow a hole through every institution in the sector.
And if I’m being honest—if I peel my own bravado back far enough to see what’s underneath—I’m also here to see whether he’s going to fold.
Because the thing about Morazin is… arrogance is his armor. His pride is how he stays upright.
But armor makes a particular sound when it cracks.
I stop at the terminal embedded in the vault wall and pull up the hearing scaffolding. Multi-feed distribution. Live transcription. Redundant audio capture. Automatic evidence release tied to Morazin’s biometrics.
A truth-delivery machine.
Morazin’s eyes flick to the holo display and his throat bobs once.
There. The crack.
I turn my head slightly so he can see my expression—calm, clinical.
“We’re almost ready,” I tell him.
Morazin huffs a laugh that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Ready to parade me like a trophy.”
“Ready to keep you alive,” I correct. “Those are different.”
His lips curl. “You think that little dead-man trick makes me safe.”
“It doesn’t make you safe,” I say. “It makes you expensive to kill.”
Morazin’s gaze sharpens, and for a second I see something I didn’t expect—fear, brief and bright.
Not fear of me.
Fear of what waits outside this room.
He swallows, then forces the smirk back into place like he’s rebuilding a mask in real time. “The Nine will kill me anyway.”
“Maybe,” I say.
He laughs, sharp. “Not ‘maybe.’ Theywill.They don’t let liabilities speak.”
I step closer, slow, and crouch slightly so we’re closer to eye level. The vault smells faintly of antiseptic. Like it’s trying to keep violence clean.
“Then talk fast,” I murmur.
Morazin’s nostrils flare. His arrogance slips again, and this time it stays slipped long enough that I can see the shape of it.
He’s terrified.
The Nine isn’t a myth to him. It’s personal. It’s the thing he thought he could ride without being thrown.
He leans forward against the restraints as far as they’ll allow, voice dropping.
