Chapter 27 The Silent War

• The air in Rafael’s boardroom was thick enough to choke on. Twelve men sat around the polished mahogany table, their suits pressed, their expressions carved from stone. From the outside, they looked like allies; from where Rafael sat, they were a gallery of masks hiding teeth.
• No one spoke unless spoken to. No one shifted unless necessary. The only sound was the faint hum of the overhead lights and the occasional clink of crystal as someone sipped water.
• Valentina sat at Rafael’s right, her posture calm, but her eyes were moving. She could feel it the invisible threads running between certain people in the room. The way Diego avoided looking at Hector, but passed him a slip of paper under the table. The subtle brush of fingers against a folded napkin in front of Morales, the one with a faint symbol scrawled in blue ink at the corner.