Chapter 230

• Claire's pov
• I was pacing so hard that I thought the floor would soon crack under my heels. My hand kept going through my hair, smoothing strands that didn’t even need smoothing. My heart was still pounding from the humiliation I had endured in there, in that suffocating boardroom filled with hostile eyes and voices that spat me out as though I was some unworthy intruder. My chest burned with a mixture of rage and shame, and I couldn’t calm down enough to breathe normally.
• I had called Sebastian minutes ago, my voice clipped, sharp, desperate. He had promised to work on it, to dig into those people’s lives and hand me something, anything, to take back inside that room. I needed power. I needed leverage. Otherwise, I would lose everything before I had even begun.