Chapter 5 Exactly Who He Is

The room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

Everyone was doing that thing — the thing you do when you've just seen something you definitely weren't supposed to see.

They looked at their drinks.

They leaned toward the person next to them and whispered something low and probably unimportant.

No one dared look at the Zhangs.

The president just ignored the total awkwardness.

He had walked in, read the room in two seconds, and shifted his focus entirely to Leo, and that shift was so complete and so immediate that the room had no choice but to follow.

He was still at the head table now, standing at Leo's shoulder, shaking his hand like Leo was the most important guy he'd ever met.

"How long have you been in the city?" he asked.

"A few months," Leo said.

"My office sent three official meeting requests. They said you were unavailable."

"I was."

The president smiled. It was the smile of a man who seemed more amused than annoyed. "Well. I'm glad circumstances arranged this."

Leo looked at him and said nothing, and somehow that made the president lean in slightly, like Leo's silence meant something deep. It didn't. Leo just had nothing to add.

Ming's forced laugh just... cut out. Like someone flipped a switch.

He was still standing where he had been standing when he had been performing for the room, and the room that had been watching him perform was now watching something else entirely, and he didn't even know what to do with his face anymore.

He kept it neutral. He was trying.

Wei's expression was harder to read. It was the face of a man calculating losses he didn't like and trying to figure out a plan B on the fly. He stood very still. Still enough that it looked like some sorcerer made a stone out of him.

The situation was speaking for itself. Nobody needed to say a word. Five minutes ago, Leo had been trash being escorted toward the exit. Right now, the most powerful man in the country was asking him why he hadn't returned calls. The math between those two things was simple and it was devastating, and every person in the room was doing it silently.

The president turned to Wei.

"I have to ask," he said, his tone was too nice—the kind of nice that meant he wasn't joking, but he also wasn't trying to cause any harm.

"Does the Zhang family have an existing relationship with Mr. Leo? I wasn't aware of any prior connection."

Wei opened his mouth. "We — our paths have crossed. Through various business channels."

"Of course." The president nodded slowly, the way people nod when the answer has confirmed exactly what they already thought.

He looked between Wei and Leo once, and then — like he was done with the topic — he turned back to address the room in the easy, smooth way of a guy who gives speeches for a living.

"Zephyr Global," he said, conversationally, like he was just talking about the weather, "is handling huge infrastructure contracts in fourteen countries right now. Active contracts. Not old contracts—operational." He paused, not for effect but because he was moving through a list. "They manage sovereign wealth portfolios for six governments. Their logistics network moves a literal third of the continent's entire supply chain every single day."

He said it the way you'd read a recipe. Flour, eggs, butter. Infrastructure, portfolios, supply chain. There was no flourish in it. The man kept stating the long list of endless facts, delivered flat and fast, the kind that didn't need to be dramatic to land a punch.

Eleanor's champagne flute had not moved. She was holding it at the same angle she had been holding it for the past several minutes, perfectly still, like she'd either forgotten it was there or was afraid moving it would remind everyone she was still standing there.

Ming looked like he needed to sit down. But he didn't sit down though. He stood where he was and kept his face neutral and did not look at Leo, which was its own kind of answer.

The president leaned slightly toward Leo.

"I'd like to arrange something more formal," he said. "A private meeting, proper agenda, when the timing works for you."

Leo reached into his jacket pocket and checked his watch.

He actually looked at it. Like, he had somewhere better to be than to talk to the freaking President.

"Have your people reach out to my assistant," he said. "She'll find a window."

"Of course." The President smiled, but you could tell he was trying too hard not to look desperate for a meeting. And he failed.

Leo stood, straightened his jacket and let his gaze move across the room one time, slow and unhurried, and it landed on the Zhangs. He looked at them for a moment — not long, just long enough — and then he reached into his jacket.

He just pulled out a huge, folded stack of cash without even counting. He walked to the nearest table and set them down, and he did not look at Wei when he did it.

"For the event," he said. "Costs add up. Didn't want you stretched."

He let that sit for exactly one second.

"You'll be hearing from me. Soon."

He put his shades back on. He turned and walked toward the main doors, and the two men who had been flanking him the entire time fell into step behind him without a word. The doors opened and they closed, leaving the room absolutely silent.

Nobody moved immediately.

Then, gradually, people found reasons. A guest near the window remembered a prior engagement.

Two men by the bar decided they needed air.

A woman in a red dress kissed Eleanor on the cheek, said something warm and meaningless, and was gone.

It happened in ones and twos, quietly, without any one person making it obvious that the momentum of the evening had collapsed.

The catering staff suddenly got super busy near the walls.

They refilled things that didn't need it. They rearranged stuff that was already fine. They just kept moving because standing still felt too awkward.

The president made his excuses. He did it graciously, warmly, in that graceful way of a man who has somewhere important to be, but is too polite to make you feel like he's ditching you.

He shook Wei's hand. He said something about following up. He left.

And then it was just the Zhangs, and the staff who were very busy, and the music that someone had forgotten to stop.

Ming just stared at the cash on the table. He didn't touch it. He just looked at it like it had insulted his entire family and he was still trying to figure out a comeback.

Wei was staring at nothing. At the middle distance. At the worst-case scenario that hadn't finished loading in his brain yet.

Eleanor spoke first.

"Does anyone want more champagne?"

No one answered. The question hung in the air, awkward and loud, making the huge room feel tiny.

Outside, through the full-length glass of the venue walls, the city moved the way cities move — without any awareness of or interest in what was happening inside.

The music played on. The lights were still warm. The catering still looked expensive.

Oh, who said they had nothing to worry about?

Because jinx — they had plenty to worry about now.