The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism novel Chapter 412

Chapter 412: 412 | The Calibration Error [CASTLE BONUS]

Petra’s expression communicated that she had, in fact, reviewed Diane Fitzgerald’s complete professional history, client roster, revenue projections, and probably her favorite breakfast order through whatever database the Lang family maintained for industry competitors. Petra Lang did not enter meetings without having memorized every relevant biographical detail about every person who would be present. This was either admirable preparation or concerning surveillance depending on how charitable you felt toward people whose mothers ran Hero agencies with federal database access.

The door opened at one fifty-three.

Diane entered the conference room with the specific energy of a woman who had been waiting for this particular room since the moment she learned it existed. She wore ivory. A structured blazer over a silk blouse that caught the afternoon light and made her skin glow in a way that Luster enhanced but didn’t manufacture. Gold earrings. Gold watch. Her pink hair fell in a calculated wave across one shoulder. Her heels were good. Better than good. The kind of heels that cost enough to communicate financial confidence without crossing into ostentation.

She carried a leather portfolio that matched her blazer and a coffee from the faculty lounge that she’d apparently obtained from somewhere between the parking garage and this room. She smelled like expensive botanicals and the specific perfume I had been breathing forty minutes ago in room 205.

"Petra." Diane’s drawl stretched the name into something warm and proprietary. "Sugar, you look wonderful. That blazer is doing exactly what you need it to do."

Petra’s composure held. Barely. The compliment landed with the surgical precision of someone who had spent twenty years calibrating exactly how much warmth to deploy in professional settings.

"Ms. Fitzgerald."

"Diane. Please. We’re going to be in each other’s lives for a while, and Ms. Fitzgerald sounds like a summons."

Diane sat beside me. Not across from me. Beside me. The chair placement communicated a united front to anyone entering the room, and it put her close enough that I could feel her body heat through two layers of silk and one layer of cotton.

She opened her portfolio. Inside, I caught a glimpse of documents organized with color-coded tabs that made Percy’s filing system look recreational. A photograph of Reina and Marcus sat in a clear sleeve on the portfolio’s interior flap. Diane had brought my parents to the meeting. Whether as emotional armor or genuine tribute was a distinction she would never clarify and I had learned not to ask.

"Odette Reyes confirmed fourteen hundred," Diane said. "She’ll arrive at two sharp because the Lang Agency operates on Germanic precision rather than Southern hospitality. She’ll open with pleasantries, transition to the file within four minutes, and have her actual questions prepared before she sits down."

"You’ve met her."

"I’ve met everyone in this industry who matters and several who don’t. Odette is the one who matters." Diane’s blue eyes found mine. Cold and warm simultaneously in the way that only Diane’s eyes achieved. "She is also very good at what she does and will not be charmed by a boy with a nice jawline who quotes Radiant on camera."

"Then what will she be charmed by?"

"Competence. Clarity. And the impression that whatever she’s investigating is significantly less interesting than what she’ll find if she looks elsewhere." Diane sipped her coffee. "I will handle the registration questions. You will handle the personal questions. Petra will handle the institutional questions. Nobody freelances. Nobody improvises. Nobody mentions the word ’progressive’ unless I say it first."

She looked at Petra. Petra looked at Diane. Two women separated by twenty years of age and united by the specific intensity of people who had been underestimated because of how they looked and had spent their lives making everyone who underestimated them regret the calibration error.

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