Chapter 163: Boardroom Observation

The Crosswell Dominion boardroom had always been calibrated for tension.

Glass walls. Muted stone. A table long enough to enforce hierarchy without naming it. The city lay beneath them, distant and obedient, reduced to geometry and traffic patterns. This room existed to make decisions feel inevitable.

Nathaniel sat at the head of the table, hands folded, posture unchanged. Yet something in him had shifted.

Lucas Reed noticed first. He had known Nathaniel too long to miss it. The stillness was the same, but the pressure beneath it had altered, like a blade sheathed rather than raised.

The quarterly review began without ceremony.

Ethan Vale spoke about numbers. Projections. Adjusted forecasts tied to port expansions and regulatory delays. H