151. After They LeaveRoman

The door closed without sound. Not slammed. Not hurried.

Just… closed. And that, somehow, was worse.

I stood where I had been standing when they turned their backs on me, three small figures walking down a carpet that suddenly looked too large for the world it had carried into my suite. I listened until their footsteps faded, counted the seconds until the elevator dinged somewhere down the hall, and waited for the instinct that had driven my entire adult life to ...