I was calm because I knew something they did not, and knowledge, in a confrontation, is the deepest form of power there is.

All of Luca’s confidence, all of Chloe’s rehearsed cruelty, rested on a single assumption: that they held the power and I held none, that I was cornered, that the scene would go the way scenes always go when a powerful person ambushes a powerless one.

They had built their whole performance on that assumption, and they had no idea it was false.

And there is a particular, unshakable calm that comes over a person who is being threatened by someone operating on a false premise, who knows the ground is about to shift and can already feel it moving.