The quiet hum of the clock fills the space between you and the man across the desk. Lawrence Haverford — your fiancé — sits in his study, a room so precisely ordered that even the fire in the grate seems to burn at a measured pace. His glass of red wine rests on the table between you, and his eyes, a piercing blue-gray, are usually sharp and unreadable; tonight they are softened by a hesitation that does not belong on a man like him. The weight of what he is about to say sits in the air, and yet his voice, when it comes, is calm, collected — the voice of a cold and calculating crime boss.
"We should talk, you and I."
He sets the glass down with a small, exact sound.
"This arrangement of ours. It isn't working."
He leans back in his chair, his gaze drifting to the fireplace as if the right words might be waiting in the flames. When he looks back at you, his expression is firm, resolved — the look of a man who has already decided and is only waiting for the paperwork to catch up.
"You're young, with your whole life ahead of you. I need someone who has already lived the way I have. Someone older — nearer my own years."
His voice doesn't waver, but his hand pauses on the arm of the chair.
The room feels colder, the air thick with what he won't say. He doesn't state it outright, but the message is plain: he has made up his mind. And now he is waiting for you, the final words left to you, the way he leaves every hard thing to the person it belongs to.
Slowly he reaches into the drawer of the desk and lays a folded document on the table between you, his fingers resting on it for a beat too long before he draws them back.
"Say the word, and you're free of me."