Inside the Recess Room.
The air in the room was thick—suffocating, almost—like the walls themselves had absorbed every ounce of tension built over the course of this brutal, drawn-out trial. There were no windows, no view of the outside world—just walls the color of dust and legal pads, the hum of fluorescent lights, and the heavy breath of seven men and women who had fought tooth and nail to win what now felt like a war slipping through their fingers.
At the forefront stood Whittaker, sixty this year, though the weight of this case had etched another decade into the lines around his eyes. Sharp-suited, composed, and eerily still, he didn't fidget or adjust his cufflinks like the younger associates flanking the room. No—Whittaker had long ago mastered the silence of anticipation, the dignity of pressure.
But he wasn't just any lawyer.
