Chapter 2 #4
Alina lingered beside Samuel’s desk, leaning her hip lightly against the partition wall.
Her posture was relaxed, creating a small, insulated pocket of calm amidst the floor's low hum of activity.
George remained planted a few feet away, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, his gaze skimming the busy office floor with the bored, detached disinterest.
“So,” Alina began, “where’d you move here from? Or are you local?”
Samuel hesitated, his fingers pausing over his keyboard before he let his hands fall into his lap, out of sight.
He could feel the faint, residual tremor in his fingertips and didn't want it to be visible. “Born and raised here,” he said, consciously keeping his voice even. “My family’s still in the city.”
“That’s nice,” Alina replied, her head tilting slightly. “I always thought there is no quite a place as New York. Are you close with yours?”
Samuel blinked, feeling the rigid line of his shoulders loosen a fraction. “Yeah,” he said slowly, the word feeling more solid than he expected. “Mostly with my brother.”
Alina’s smile widened encouragingly. “Older or younger?”
“Younger,” Samuel answered, and without meaning to, he felt the corner of his mouth lift. “He’s twenty-five but acts like he’s sixty. Last week he called me at six in the morning because he heard ‘a weird noise’ outside the house. Turned out to be a raccoon on the porch.”
Alina laughed, a bright, genuine sound that cut cleanly through the sterile office atmosphere. “Six in the morning? What did he think it was, a burglar trying to scale the windows?”
“Oh no,” Samuel said, the smile tugging a little wider now, feeling strange on his tense face. “He was convinced it was a ghost. Said he could ‘feel the energy shift.’ He watches too many paranormal documentaries.”
George made a soft, derisive scoffing sound at that, not subtle enough to go unnoticed but not blatant enough to be directly called out.
Alina rolled her eyes at George in a fond, familiar way before looking back at Samuel. “He sounds hilarious. You must have your hands full with him.”
“More than I’d like to admit,” Samuel said, and this time the smile was real, unforced, reaching his eyes for a fleeting second. “He’s a disaster, but he’s… my disaster.”
Alina’s expression softened, her gaze holding a trace of real understanding. “That’s sweet.”
Samuel’s shoulders finally dropped a full, measurable inch as he released a breath he hadn't realized he was still holding. The tight, suffocating coil of anxiety in his chest eased its grip just enough to let a sliver of genuine warmth creep in around the hardened edges. For the first time since he’d stepped off the elevator onto the sixteenth floor, he didn’t feel like a brittle, fragile imitation of himself, poised to shatter.
And then the air behind him shifted.
Samuel felt it before he understood it, a subtle, cold prickle that traced a path down his spine and made his smile falter and die on his lips.
The easy flow of their conversation seemed to thin out and evaporate on its own.
George straightened almost imperceptibly, the arrogance in his posture flickering into something sharper, more alert. Alina’s expression froze mid-thought, the warm amusement in her eyes cooling and solidifying into a neutral mask.
Samuel looked up, his neck feeling stiff and uncooperative.
Gael Wise stood behind him, just outside the periphery of his workstation.
His expression was unreadable; a calm, steady mask that made Samuel’s breath hitch in his throat, caught between speeding up and stopping entirely. He couldn’t tell which.
Samuel’s spine went instantly rigid, vertebrae locking into a straight, tense line. His shoulders pulled back and down in a military-grade adjustment, a movement without conscious thought. The breath he had just managed to take lodged somewhere high in his chest, useless and trapped.
Gael’s gaze swept over the three of them, his eyes holding no hint of amusement or patience.
“Are you finished chitchatting?”
His tone was flat.
Alina closed her mouth immediately, any further explanation clearly abandoned. George shifted his weight, a barely-there adjustment as he tried, and failed, to project an air of unbothered composure.
“We were just…” Alina began, her voice carefully measured, but Gael’s gaze slid to her and she let the sentence die, her pleasant expression fading into something blank.
He turned his head slightly toward George, “Bring the Kincaid deposition notes to my office. Now.”
George’s smirk returned instantly, “Of course, Mr. Wise.” He shot Samuel a quick, sidelong look before reaching across his desk to grab a thick, red-rope file.
The moment they were out of sight, Alina let out a quiet breath. She reached out and rested a gentle hand on Samuel’s shoulder.
“Don’t mind him,” she murmured, her voice low. “Gael’s… a lot. But once you get used to his style, he’s not as terrifying as he seems.”
Samuel managed a stiff, jerky nod, but his throat was still too tight to form any words.
The fragile warmth he’d felt only moments earlier had drained away entirely, leaving a familiar, cold tension settling deep into his muscles and beneath his skin.