Scarlett Whitmore didn't just look at him; she dissected him. Mike felt the weight of that gaze; it was the precise quality he had read about in the deep-dive intelligence reports.
It was the stare of someone who had spent years training her brain to bypass the performative bullshit of the corporate world.
She had learned to distinguish between the polished veneer of competence and its actual substance, and her expression suggested she found the latter to be a tragically rare commodity.
The silence in the elevator was pressurized, thick enough to feel in his lungs.
"You're not from a firm," she said suddenly.
Her voice wasn't accusatory; it was a statement of fact, delivered with the cold detachment of a scientist observing a new phenomenon. "The big consulting firms, McKinsey and BCG, send people who have been trained to present competence."
"They wear it like armor. They have rehearsed slides and curated personalities."
