Victor noticed Leo staring at him, unblinking, then saw his eyes shift slowly toward Lyla.
"Ethan… disappeared from the VR capsule again," Lyla said, recounting what she had just witnessed.
As she spoke, Leo's pupils had narrowed into vertical slits, and his gaze stayed fixed on Victor. The weight of it made Victor's chest tighten.
"Boss isn't here…" Leo said suddenly, his voice rough. "Are you going to tell them yourself? Or should I?"
Victor blinked, thrown off. "What?"
"Not you, Victor. Step aside," Leo said flatly. "I wasn't talking about you."
Only then did everyone realize Leo's attention wasn't on Victor at all, but on the man standing just behind him—Williams. A ripple of understanding passed through the group. None of them were fools. They remembered what Starfall had described earlier: when Leo had been half-dead, he'd carved words of warning into the ground with shaking hands.
