As the clock strikes midnight, the Atlantic coastline is set ablaze with bursts of red, blue, and white fireworks, their reflections dancing across the water; without warning, every phone screen lights up with the same unexpected message.
@selinagha, you thought a name change and a new city could bury your old life.
Before the heels and the headlines, there was a show. You may not remember it because it was canceled prematurely after its leading actress didn't wake up one morning. The official story: a tragedy, Deniz all alone, no one around to help.
Except someone was around. We'd like to introduce you to the woman who finally landed her first lead role; in a tragedy. The same one that supplied the party favors that inevitably led to Deniz's death.
Selin, you built something new out of the wreckage of that night: a new name, a new city, a new continent. Impressive, really. But reinvention isn't the same as absence, and we know the difference even when you've spent years pretending not to. Was it guilt? You couldn't have been naive enough to think they'd give you the lead role if the actual one was out of the way, were you?
You had one job, Selin. Now everyone gets to have one question: what else would you lie and kill for?
-P
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francis decided to be healthy that afternoon , the day that been pretty uneventful for a monday. he placed his order for a ridiculously expensive salad at sweetgreen and an even more expensive beet and headed back to his office content with his choices. he took a deep breath as he was about to take his first bite when a text came in --- a number with a + and too many digits which he wanted to ignore but it could be important. he let out a groan when he saw his name.
francis,
we're sure romy has told you how this works
works , right ?
he took his bite and angrily chewed through his salad --- he knew he should've just gone and gotten a fried chicken sandwich like he wanted. nothing good came when salads were involved. he grabbed the makeshift ' DO NOT DISTURB ' sign he made after his intern from last year kept asking if the tampons in the women's restroom were free --- how would he know ? he walked up and told the clerk --- " if they're bleeding send them to the er -- i don't exist for the rest of the day. "
he couldn't necessarily focus on the rest of the text once he saw who they referenced knowing exactly who the text was from. 9pm was still hours away and he was being told to kill a man who he didn't hate , -- council members tended to be somewhat highly regarded and he was a hope. however --- lucky for francis councilman hope had an office at city hall and a few clicks told him he would be out for a couple of hours. he grabbed a couple of stacks of miscellaneous paper and his keys -- one of the perks of being chief of staff , he had access to every room in city hall , except whatever breslin wanted him out of but he had his ways.
he exited his office , locking it before moving to the councilman's. it wasn't odd for francis to drop things off when they were out of the office , he had built that type of confidence with everyone and that extended to the man in question. he knocked at the door one , two , three times before using his key to open the door and turned on the light. he immediately locked the door behind him , putting the papers down on an empty chair. he removed a pair of gloves from his blazer pocket , putting them on and immediately began searching. he wasn't sure what he was looking for but he'd know when he saw it.
gloved hands carefully went through the man's belongings , no place was left unturned but everything was put back in its rightful place. he let out a sigh sitting on the man's chair , expression turned into one of amusement , " might have to ask for this after , " he said leaning back. after a moment he opened the man's desk , drawer one , two and three were a bust until he felt drawer four a little more hollow. lips curled into a smirk , " not so clean are we , " he muttered to himself before revealing the false bottom. gloved hand reached in and pulled out a glock 19 --- not his first choice but it'll do. he carefully removed the mag and thankfully it was fully loaded. he closed the cabinet drawer , placed the gun between the papers and headed back into his office , making small talk with the clerk so she would not suspect a thing and basically let her know he was taking the day.
once inside his office he removed the glock from the papers and placed it in his bag. he removed the gloves and texted romy that he would be late so she could just eat and do whatever without him. typically he probably would've called or sent a voice memo but he had the inching she might catch on to his lie.
9pm came a lot faster , even more the coordinates that pantheon texted to follow. francis had definitely dressed for the occasion , wore clothes he didn't necessarily care about in case the councilman fought -- they usually did. he almost felt sorry for him as the other made their way across the street to the destination. francis put on his beanie and hoodie over it , leather gloves following as there was still a frost in the air. hands worked quickly to reach for the glock and pulled the safety , having a live round ready for the inevitable.
francis stepped out of a car , hands concealed as he made his way towards the councilman. they greeted each other and began small talk -- francis didn't mind this as he knew whatever was discussed wouldn't be leaving. " oh man -- i think you have something stuck on your teeth , " francis said narrowing his eyes. the councilman suddenly self conscious began to take out whatever fake food was stuck in his teeth -- " let me see , " francis started , " say ah , " almost in command the other complied and francis immediately took out the other's weapon. the councilman's eyes widened and grabbed onto's francis's wrist. francis jammed the weapon into the other's mouth , careful not to break any teeth or show any sign of struggle from the other before pulling the trigger. " got it , " he muttered , body instantly going limp , francis , placing the councilman's hands on the weapon , standing behind him allowing gravity to take its course.
he went back into his car immediately removing the gloves and driving home -- arriving and immediately cuddling up with romy but not before sending a thumbs up to the unknown number and locking his phone.
SUMMARY: Hazal plays Pantheon Says and potentially breaks up a marriage ig
MENTIONS: @softstcps (Rüya) + @giannarossi (only a short text).
TEXT:
You know how this goes…
You have 5 minutes to cause a scene loud enough to pull the room. We don’t care how. Make it convincing.
Give us the distraction and we won’t tell your team what you are capable of…
Hazal read the text once before she took it upon herself to send a short message to her cousin, as well as Gianna Rossi, one that simply read: I'd think about leaving now, if I were you, before slipping her phone back into her purse. As the message she had personally received had stated, she knew how this went. The last time? ADA Grayson was found dead. Her eyes soon lifted into the crowd of people, she didn’t panic, panic was a luxury she had never been able to afford and had long since stopped reaching for. Instead something quieter happened - an internal shift, like a dial turning, and the room she had been moving through socially for the better part of the last hour had became a room she was reading professionally. The candlelight, the masks, the champagne, the music. All of it rearranged itself into data.
She needed someone volatile enough to react. Publicly. A man, was a thought she settled on - men at events like this carried their pride closer to the surface, where it was easier to reach. She needed someone with enough at stake to shatter convincingly and someone standing close enough to a fault line that a single word would do the work. She needed someone who had already done half the work for her and she found him in under sixty seconds. Standing at the bar, well dressed, masked, a glass in hand that wasn't his first of the evening - she could tell by the particular looseness in his shoulders, the way he laughed a half second too late at something the man beside him said. His wife was across the room. Hazal had already noted them together earlier, the careful distance they maintained that wasn't quite natural. The wife had been in conversation with another man for the better part of twenty minutes. Standing close. The kind of close that meant something, or could be made to.
Hazal moved, not toward her target directly - never directly, but in the slow, social drift of a woman crossing a room at a party. She came alongside him at the bar in the natural way of two guests reaching the same point at the same moment. The bartender was occupied at the far end. She reached across the bar with the ease of someone entirely comfortable in rooms like this and retrieved the open bottle of whisky sitting within reach, turning to him with the quiet offer of a refill. He accepted without hesitation. Of course he did. She poured, and in the same breath, without looking at him directly, she spoke - low enough that it belonged only to him, "The man your wife has been talking to all evening - she's been to his apartment. Twice this week. I thought you should know."
She set the bottle down close to the other and stepped back from the bar. For a moment nothing happened. She counted the seconds the way she always did - not with anxiety, but with the clean detachment of someone waiting for a mechanism to engage. His glass came down first - not dropped, but set, with the controlled force of a man attempting restraint and only half achieving it. Then he straightened before he turned, his eyes found his wife across the room with the terrible precision of someone who had perhaps already suspected the information Hazal had given and had simply needed outside confirmation. He took three steps and then the restraint left him entirely. The bottle went with it - knocked from the bar's edge in the turn of his body, hitting the floor in an explosion of glass and amber that cut clean through the music. Heads snapped toward the sound. The dancefloor momentarily stilled as his voice rose across the room directed entirely at the man his wife was in talks with, seemingly past the point of any return.
The scene had arrived and Hazal was already at the far side of the room. She didn't hurry, nor did she look back, her focus remained on her exit, moving in the current of obliviousness and toward the glass door. Once the door opened and then closed, the noise soon fell away behind her as she stood on the path outside and breathed. Not relief. She didn't allow herself relief. Just air and the small deliberate act of placing one foot in front of the other as she walked away from the glasshouse. The pantheon had given her five minutes, and Hazal had done it in four.
The weekend had been nice. Sweet and slow after a great date with Rachel. Cesar felt like he was in the montage moment of a rom-com. The sun felt like it was shining brighter, the flowers smelled sweeter and he had even slept more soundly. Even his daughter had been suspicious but she was so busy with midterms she had found it hard to pay much attention aside from the food drop offs and wellness checks he was doing to make sure she hadn't fallen into a pit of stress.
He had just gotten home from her place when his phone had vibrated in his pocket. He figured it was just Sol responding to his text that he had made it home, so he didn't check it at first as he slid off his shoes and shrugged off his coat. It was the first time this week that he was actually going to have some downtime in his apartment. The shop would be closed tomorrow, and he had promised himself that he would try his hardest to sleep in.
He took his time, opened a beer, shuffled some mail around, before he turned on his stereo and continued playing the Sade CD he had been playing earlier. It was only when he opened up his laptop to do more research on building pyramids, that he saw the preview of the text. He opened it and stared at it only for a moment before he tried to find out where it had come from. The frustration from hitting a dead end felt more like an insult than the text but his heart was still racing.
If you don't, you know what will happen...
Did he know, though? The text had mentioned his gambling not Mikki, not Penny, not anything about the actual secret that kept him up at night. He was embarrassed about the gambling. And he knew deep down that he couldn't just shut it off but he had convinced himself he could. At least for now. Until he saw his bank account fill up again and was happy to take the risk. But he had paid down half of his debt with Ellie. And, as crazy as it sounded, he thought he actually had a lead on this pyramid ask. More than that, he had come clean to Imani the night after the ADA was killed. He couldn't keep it to himself anymore, not when she was asking him to his face if he wanted to tell her something. The way things were going, she would probably find out eventually anyway. Secrets being spilled, loyalty being questioned.
He sat back in his chair and drained half of his beer. He thought about Sol's reaction when she saw it. She was a millennial who was chronically online; there was no way she could avoid it. She'd have questions, and he'd have to have answers. He had lied to her long enough. And then he thought of Mikki. Their last conversation and how he had been expecting her any day at his door. But what would it do to her when she found out that her father had issues? That his most steady vice and companion was a bookie's notebook. He felt his stomach twist at the thought. But he couldn't run away from his problems forever.
Cesar Rolando Flores was a lot of things. At many times in his life he had been a coward. A pathetic excuse for a man who found a way around all of his problems and mistakes. He had been greedy, wanting more and more without sight of giving up. His addiction had worsened far beyond what he had intended. He had felt selfish at times, refusing to upset the balance of his perfect home until the universe had the last laugh. There were so many moments he blamed himself for his wife's death, even though he knew there was nothing he could do to stop her from getting worse. Cesar had even been a cheater. Not in his relationships but on his final exam his junior year of college. Something that still lingered in his dreams as if he was still going to get caught for it.
But Cesar had never, ever, been a snitch. Especially if it meant making up something he surely hadn't seen. When he thought about that night, all he remembered was how nice the champagne had tasted, how he had blown $1,000 dollars in his first half hour playing, and how the night had ended with running into his eldest daughter. He could barely pull Sebastian Hope's face into his mind aside from what he saw in the papers. But more than that, Cesar would rather pull his own tongue out than find himself walking into a precinct to report something he saw. Not unless it directly affected him. And even then, the police were hardly his first call. All they ever did was fuck things up.
He leaned forward again, finished his beer, and wiped his mouth with his sleeve before looking at the message again. He tried to trace it one more time before he typed out a reply.
"You should know better than to gamble with a gambler. I'm pretty sure snitches get stitches. Take your blackmail and shove it up your ass."
He hesitated for a moment before sending the message through. Then he deleted his messages, his messaging app, and threw his phone and laptop on the floor to smash them. No way in hell he was going to keep the same electronics when they had found him so easily. He cleaned up the remnants and threw them in a bag he'd be bringing down to the dumpster and went back into his bedroom. He looked around, suddenly feeling his apartment shrink in front of him, and went to work, tearing up the place to make sure there were no cameras or listening devices. When he was done, he went to his safe, grabbed one of his backup phones, and quickly plugged it in. As soon as it showed signs of life, he dialed Rachel's number. It was kind of his job to memorize these things by heart.
As soon as he heard her voice on the other side, he felt the chaos in his chest ease a bit. "Hey, I know it's late, but are you free? Can I come over? I have something I need to tell you."
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Nan was in the middle of crocheting a strawberry that she had plans to fill with fluff and give to her mom. Her phone buzzed and picking it up she saw the contact name 'GoPiss Girl' with the iconic meme for the contact. The original name for the number was the Pantheon and the message was to her. She scanned over the words several times:
'Nan,We've heard you can keep a secret...
That was so nice of them to notice! She was fantastic at keeping secrets. She didn't get why people were so bothered by this guy.
...We've sent footage that would make Councilman Sebastian Hope the number one suspect of putting out a hit on our very famous ADA Grayson.
The first person they named wasn't familiar to her, she'd have to ask Francis about him. She was very unlike her brother in the way that he knew everything there was to know about that world. She did know who ADA Grayson is, or was, since he clearly had brought a lot of scandal and she did love scandal.
You will find a way to get it to Officer Ward of the NYPD. Or your father having an older son will no longer be your family's best kept secret anymore...
-P
Well that was ridiculous, Pierre had been a secret she had revealed when she was trying to find out more about her father. But Nan focused on the threat and knew that she was not doing this to protect Frank. She would have to do this task to protect her mom and brothers from finding out things that had broken her spirit in ways she would never actually say aloud.
Nan knew what her choice was, but just to make sure that he wasn't some really nice and generous person she texted Francis. The blonde felt like if he was the type of politician who saved puppies from burning buildings and was in the midst of solving world peace she couldn't go through with this. Turns out though he was more than likely just like any other politician.
Her plan of action came into focus as she got dressed in non-descript clothing. There was no way she would just go to the NYPD with this information. It was a roundabout route but one where she wasn't the direct messenger. Nan had street smarts sometimes. When she got towards her door, she noticed the package with a tape, who even used tapes anymore? How very 90's of Pantheon.
Grabbing her keys, the tape, and putting on her shoes, she made her way to the subway. There was no way she'd bike all the way to city hall, especially because her bike was recognizable. Making her way into City Hall, she was very comfortable with the particular roadmap ahead of her. Her steps led her to her brother's office domain. There weren't many people around on a Sunday, mostly interns. Nan asked the intern at the front desk to check her brother's office for her, because she was pretty sure she left her glasses in there when she was eating lunch with him on Friday.
She took the opportunity to slip the tape out of the pocket of her overalls and slid it discretely into a folder of mail that was waiting to go into Breslin's office. Breslin was always working, so she figured it would take very little time for the tape to make its way from the front desk to Breslin to the NYPD.
Nan gave the boy who was probably no older than twenty a charming smile as he came back up to tell her they weren't there. "That's okay! Thanks for checking! Hope you have a great rest of your day!" She turned on her heels, making her way out of City Hall, back towards the subway, and back to Brooklyn. She wondered why Pantheon wanted her to do all of that? And why this guy? There was a slight feeling of guilt pooling in her stomach, feeling like what she had just done was wrong, but also knew if she hadn't done it the alternative would have crushed her family.
back to the veiled charity event going on inside the glass house, sonny had his eyes on the black glistening water. it's moonlit mystery seemed to mirror what he'd been attempting to abandon since his arrival. escape seemed possible, if not a little dramatic, the sounds of the waves lapping at the shoreline were a tease the smoking blond was just about ready to give in to.
pulling him from reverie was the odd alert sound from his phone. stuffed into the pocket of his dress pants sonny could've sworn he'd put the device on silent. unease crept into his shoulders and the muscles stiffened slightly, shifting back just enough that his spine was resembling perfect posture. something nipped at the air, prickled the skin just enough that someone as incredibly attuned to the space around himself would be casting his eyes about as the sensation of being watched settled onto him like a knowing.
alone, sonny pulled his phone from his pocket and the bright glow of it in the barely lit portion of the patio he'd found solace in burned his eyes. a tap on the message revealed a threat:
sonny,
we've been paying attention...
the things you've had to piece back together, the moments you've had to talk your way out of. would the reapers still trust you if they knew what it means?
the comms cabin on the east grounds. take it over, lock it down, keep it dark for the next hour and your secret is safe.
-p
there was no immediate reaction. sure, a small spike of anger and retaliation, but he'd kept those feelings well under control. high pressure situations were commonplace for him. he'd trained extensively for them and survived every op he'd been tasked with. hell, sonny was a wartime hero and decorated veteran. things like this didn't rattle him. he thought of the optics.
as much as he liked to think otherwise and fall back on familiar instincts, he knew... this was different. his sole purpose for ever becoming a reaper was to be close to and protect his kin. how could he do that if his personal and what he'd thought to be private troubles separated him from the only life he'd known since his attempt at assimilating back into civilian life?
a volatile mix of pride and ego typed the response: go fuck yourself. but... sonny didn't send the message. over and over his mind worked the problem, searching for fixes and estimating damages. without ever pressing send he casually locked his phone and slipped it back into his pocket. he was a man of duty and his chosen mission since honorable discharge was looking out for his brother, and he couldn't continue to do that if he were to be excommunicated from the reapers for being such a liability.
it was a blink and you missed it moment when sonny disappeared from the furthest stretch of the light. he moved like silence on the wind and headed east in pitch darkness. it hadn't taken too long for his eyes to adjust and he was as quiet as a wolf moving through the trees. in his head was a vague idea of what the comms cabin might look like, as there were some general tells.
eventually he found himself on the edge of yet another clearing. this one of course much smaller and with dirt road access still amongst the wooded area. it was a place that didn't want to be obvious nor an eyesore when it came to the grounds as a whole. staying just inside the tree line, sonny circled the rim of the clearing and did a quick assessment of the cabin. reconnaissance informed that there were three men present, though there was always chance for more inside, two of them were rather large and gave off a security presence while the one he could see through the window at the table setup with screens seemed to be the tech guy.
time was ticking away, those pantheon fucks wanted the place to go dark for the next hour and the top of the hour was quickly approaching. swiftly he darted toward the cabin from the trees making minimal sound and pressed his back flat against the west side wall. he could hear them talking and chatting more clearly now and that made pinpointing their exact locations that much easier since he was going in blind. he always carried at least a knife but that would only come out if needed for defense of his life, he wasn't looking to kill anyone for this. there was also the problem of shielding his appearance because when these guys came to later sonny didn't want them to be able to identify their attacker and therefore whomever was behind whatever the fuck was gonna go on. so he'd have to surprise these guys, if lucky from behind, otherwise he'd have to keep his head down.
rounding the back corner sonny moved along the back wall of the cabin. one of the guards was having a smoke by the east wall and was alone. back to him and looking out to the vehicle parked in front but off to the side of the cabin. so he crept closer until he was directly behind the bigger man, and with the speed of a mongoose he covered the man's mouth and nose with a crushing grip while the forearm of his other arm sank against the guy's throat. in needing to minimize the defense and thrashing, sonny cracked the side of the guy's knee with a well-placed kick while not losing the intensity of his chokehold. the moment the man buckled to a knee on the ground sonny used his leverage to force him face down into dirt and smothered him with his body weight until the fight in him diminished, sensing the right moment of weakness he pulled his arm from around the guy's neck and gave him a hard crack of his fist into the temple to effectively knock him out.
the front door was wide open and leaning against the siding of the cabin. with the other guard shaped man standing in the doorway, he heard the tech nerd laughing a bit behind his screens. once more sonny rounded the corner and tried his best to keep aligned against the wall, with lightening fast reflexes he snapped the door shut with a hard kick so that it surprised the guard with a hard smack to the face. stunned and muttering some curses, one hand covering his face while the other pushed the door back away from him, sonny's fist was what came flying into his face next. the breaking sound, that crunch under his knuckles, was the guard's nose and he wailed in pain. but sonny followed up with another punch, that one landing right on the button and knocking the guard out cold.
by that point the techie at the computer and screens had stood from behind them and began shouting, mostly in surprise and asking what the fuck was going on. of course sonny didn't answer. he just moved swiftly into the cabin with his head down and following the sound of the tech's voice to pinpoint exactly where he was in the room. he went down easy. a single punch and he'd hit night night mode on the floor.
it was then he finally turned to the screens and glanced around at the computer. sonny checked the time and his pulse wasn't raging like a normal person's would. it's steady rhythm hadn't really even registered stress. there was some though because he was cutting it close on time and he still had to sort where exactly he cut the lights. they'd said for an hour so he couldn't cut wires or break everything down. instead he sat and began moving through the computer system and after a couple of minutes he eventually found the controls.
there was a moment of hesitation. giving in to terrorism was the complete opposite of his training. what was going to happen when the lights went off and the entire grounds went completely dark? what about all the people carelessly partying away inside the glasshouse? sonny pulled his phone from his pocket and read the message again. for one last time he weighed the right and wrong and debated the choice he had. it didn't feel like much of one.
in his history there was a ledger of just how much everything he'd ever done or seen had cost him. he'd always been able to reason the price and justify the cause and means, but he was lost with this one.
still, sonny cut the lights to the island when the time came. then, he grabbed the bodies and moved them all to the side of the cabin and found things to effectively tie them up with in the chance they came to within the next hour he had to hold post there at the comms cabin.
summary - gigi's turn 2 play pantheon says I GUESS
The phone buzzed again in her palm, a feeling similar to the weight of a cinderblock rather than a device that delivered a message - one that would continue to burn into the back of her eyes.
Or everyone will know how much you truly care about the law.
Upon her return from court, she'd found the purple folder positioned dead center at her desk - taunting her like it had always belonged there. For a long moment, she hadn't touched it. She only stared at it with her pulse thrumming heavier within her veins as the quiet understanding settled in against a demand for the panic to remain beneath the surface.
There was no option beyond complying.
The room felt smaller as memory crept in. Unbidden, unwanted. The day her father disappeared. The day the police refused to continue efforts searching for him. The day her mother was led away in handcuffs and for years, the only glimpses of motherly warmth she was able to obtain were within the walls of a prison visitation center.
Then came the night she met the people who operated above the law she now swore to uphold. She had told herself it was temporary. Just until her mother got out. Just until the appeals were filed. Just to help make ends meet. See, she was only a child raising other children. It was a responsibility on her hands. She had no other choice. It was just until the debt was balanced.
Though there would never come a day where she met the true meaning of balance.
They’d paid for the lawyer who knew which levers to pull. They’d ensured the right records were “reconsidered.” They’d made the sentence shorter than it should have been. And when she stepped into law school years later, when scholarships didn’t quite stretch far enough, they’d filled the gap without ever saying the word loan. They never needed to. Gianna had learned early that freedom was never free. At least, not where she came from. Not on the streets she grew up. Not for people like her.
No one knew the trade off. No one knew what it entailed. No one saw the thread running quietly through her career - the favors traded, the quiet protections offered in exchange for silence.
And now, there was a different devil that came knocking.
She opened the folder, exhaling slowly as her gaze skimmed over the notes. Or rather, the threats. They wanted something inside that office - something that could make ADA Grayson look like a man who threatened a councilman. It was placement for narrative control. It was framing a dead prosecutor and using her to do so.
Refusing wasn’t an option - not when her entire career was on the line. Not when everything she'd clawed towards all her life was threatened right before her eyes.
You have 24 hours.
She picked up her phone and began typing an email to City Hall. An attorney requesting access regarding zoning compliance and oversight. It was the perfect excuse to get her inside the building. To get her close to Councilman Hope.
By morning, she was standing outside Hope’s office thirty minutes early. She had signed in downstairs, offered her identification, mentioned procedural review and zoning bylaws in the same calm tone she used in court. It was transparency, due diligence - all of which were legal claims to be here.
Hope’s assistant barely looked up when she was ushered inside and told to await his return. The office itself was predictably curated - framed photos, awards angled just so for a man that invested his career on optics.
Those same optics that would were crucial for her own motives. It was February in New York, therefore, no one would think twice that she wore leather gloves - claiming it was too cold to go without, though the reality was vastly contrasting. There was no fingerprints she wanted to leave on these notes.
He'd be back in the office any minute.
Now, one hand slipped into her bag, fingers closing around the folded notes the Pantheon had prepared. She crossed the room, movements robotic as she placed the pages inside a pocket of a leather folio that rested partially open - positioned just enough to be found yet not enough to look planted. The action itself took less than three seconds.
She was in her seat when the door swung open upon Hope's return, rising to shake his hand in greeting. Her expression never faltered. If her pulse had shifted, it didn’t show. She had learned long ago that fear got you nowhere when the only thing that mattered was surviving.
“Let me know if you need anything further from my office,” The irony tasted metallic in her mouth. As she stepped back into the corridor, heels echoing softly against marble, she didn’t look back. The discovery would soon show up in the headlines. In turn, the implications.
Survival - she reminded herself as the elevator doors closed, as she met her reflection eye to eye in the mirrored walls - had never been about clean hands.
