I felt it ripple outward from the doorway, tension tightening, attention redirecting, something unspoken passing between the people in the room that I was still too new to fully understand.
I turned before I could stop myself.
And then—I understood.
He didn’t rush. Didn’t hesitate. Alois Müller stepped into the room like none of this was urgent, like the weight of everything that had been said in the last ten minutes didn’t belong to him, even though it very clearly did. Tall enough that he seemed to take up more space than the doorway should have allowed, broad shoulders filling out a dark hoodie, his presence hitting before anything else had the chance to.
It wasn’t just his size.
It was the calmness.
Everything in the room had been tight, sharp, moving fast beneath the surface—and he wasn’t.
He was steady. Unbothered. Like he had already decided none of this mattered.
Alois let the door fall shut behind him with a quiet click, his gaze sweeping once across the table before settling—without hesitation—on me.
“Apparently the team needs even more people to deal with me, I see.” His voice was even, almost bored, the words delivered dry enough to scrape, like he wasn’t trying to be difficult so much as he had no interest in being anything else.
He didn’t move toward the table. Didn’t take a seat. Instead, he leaned back against the wall opposite me, arms crossing loosely over his chest as if he had all the time in the world, as if this wasn’t a room full of people trying to figure out what to do with him.
Alois’s gaze didn’t shift. Didn’t soften. It stayed fixed on me, assessing in a way that felt less like curiosity and more like dismissal already in progress.
“And you are?” he added, the question directed at me—apparently the only stranger unfortunately present in the huddle.
The room held its breath. I felt it. Felt every set of eyes flick between us, waiting to see what I would do, how I would respond, whether I would shrink under the weight of it or step into it like I belonged there.
For a fraction of a second, everything inside me buzzed. The same sharp awareness cut through me—too much, too fast, not enough information, not enough time—Oh, shit.The thought flashed and burned out just as quickly.
Because it didn’t matter.
Because whether I was ready for this or not, I was already in it.
I straightened slightly in my chair, my shoulders settling, my spine aligning with something steadier underneath the pressure, even as a thread of irritation tangled unexpectedly with something far less useful.
“Beatriz Ribeiro,” I responded, my tone calm, even, matching his. “Communications.”
His gaze didn’t change. If anything, it sharpened. Like I had just confirmed something for him.
And in that moment, sitting across from him with the weight of the entire room pressing in and his attention locked on me, I understood exactly what I had been handed.
Not a task.
Not an opportunity.
But Alois Müller—theproblem.
And I had absolutely no idea how I was supposed to control him.
CHAPTER 8
ALOIS
My body hadn’t caught up to the room yet.
Everything felt a step behind, like I was moving through something thicker than air, my shoulders tight beneath fabric that had been worn too long, my skin still holding onto the night in a way I couldn’t shake. The shirt clung where it shouldn’t, rough at the collar, damp in places that had long since cooled. My hands rested against my forearms, the tape still wrapped around my knuckles, edges lifting, adhesive worn thin. Every small movement pulled at it, a quiet reminder that I hadn’t stopped moving long enough for anything to settle.
I shifted my weight against the wall, letting it take some of it, not because it helped, but because it gave me something solid to press into while the rest of me felt off.