Nathan Sterling has been with Blackwood Holdings for seven years.I know this because I reviewed his personnel file this morning before the meeting, not because I was looking for anything specific, but because I have learned, in the past two weeks, that the things you are not looking for are often the things most worth finding. Seven years. Promoted twice. Trusted by Lucian in the particular way Lucian trusts people who have never given him a reason not to, which is to say completely and without much examination.He is already in the small conference room when I arrive. Jacket on, files arranged, coffee at his right hand, the posture of a man who prepared for this meeting and wants that preparation to be visible. He stands when I come in, which is courteous, and smiles, which is warm, and neither of these things tells me anything useful because both are things a person can produce deliberately.“Ariana,” he says. “I didn’t know you wanted to go through the audit findings personally.”
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