Lucien POV
The meeting had been running for forty minutes and everyone in the room was performing competently.
That was the thing about rooms like this one: the bigger the table, the more energy went into looking like you belonged at it.
I'd learned that early, I'd also learned that the people who actually run things spent less time performing and more time listening, so I was listening now, tracking the financial projections on the screen while three of my senior directors talked through the acquisition structure.
Then David Lim, the youngest director in the room and the one most likely to say the thing everyone else was thinking, leaned back slightly in his chair and said, "Honestly, the Rhys Group's advantage has always come from those early years. The ruthless phase. When Mr. Rhys was building and nobody wanted to get in the way."
A few people smiled. The kind of smile that acknowledged something true without committing to a position on it.
I didn't react.
