The silence in the room was suffocating.
Mark. World President. The words didn't fully compute, like my brain was refusing to process what they meant.
"That's impossible," I said finally, my voice hoarse. "The UN doesn't just... they can't just appoint someone that quickly. There are procedures. Vetting. Political negotiations that take months."
"They bypassed all of it," Evelyn said, her tone clinical but I could hear the strain underneath. "Emergency powers. Crisis leadership. The argument was that the world needed stability immediately after Hugo Vale's exposure and death. Mark positioned himself as the natural successor—someone who'd exposed corruption, who represented the victims, who could unite people."
"And they bought it," Camille said, her voice hollow.
