Chapter 21. Press Conference

The studio smelled like coffee that had burned hours ago and floor wax that never dried.

Cameras perched in a semicircle, red lights blinking like pupils. Someone in a headset whispered counts—three-two-one—and the hum of air-conditioning swallowed the silence left between words.

Lia stood at the edge of the set, skin prickling under powder-makeup and heat lamps. The stool behind the interview desk looked too high, too exposed. Her reflection floated in the dark glass of the teleprompter: ponytail neat, eyes ringed with sleepless gray.

A tech adjusted her mic. “You’ll be fine,” he said without looking at her.

Fine. The word meant nothing anymore.

The network backdrop behind the anchor’s chair showed her own face frozen mid-punch, mouth open, eyes wild. They’d chosen a still from her last sanctioned win—back when the public still called her “the wildcard” without irony.

Cassian was late. She told herself that was normal, that he’d