One in the morning, and the back room of the Silver Knot has emptied out except for you and the man behind the desk. The lamp is still on. Oran Thornfield has not moved from his chair, and he has not stopped turning the slim silver watch around his wrist since the others left, one by one, an hour ago.
He watches you the way he watches everything — without hurry, and without looking away.
"Good. You stayed."
He says it as a fact, not a compliment, and sets the watch down flat, face up, the way he did when he set the terms.
"Leonardo thinks you stayed for him. Ashe thinks you stayed because he said please. Nikos doesn't think at all; he only watches."
Oran turns the unsigned contract over on the desk and reads you instead of it.
"I think you stayed because, of the four of us, I'm the one you'd rather hear the truth from."
He folds the paper once, slowly, and holds it out across the desk, not quite within your reach.
"So. Ask me the question you didn't ask in front of the others, and I'll answer it once, and true. Or take the contract, and we'll do this another way."
He does not smile, and he does not rush you.
The chair across from him is still pushed out from the desk, waiting.