Backing down

"You wish to appear as the bad guy within some plan that I couldn't figure out on my own and that would be so labor intensive there would be a need for a bad guy in the first place..." Marcus muttered while shaking his head. He then took a deep breath before leaning back on his chair and looking straight at Mathew's face. "This doesn't sit well with me," he announced. "And I have no reason to trust you," he added. "So, before I will let you speak to my people, I wish to hear your plan here."

'So that's how it is,' Mathew thought, squinting his eyes a tiny little bit.

"This isn't how this was supposed to go," he said, trying to go with the same route that he did during the earlier clash.

Right now, the power balance between the two groups was still in Mathew's favor. Both in terms of real power and in terms of the perceived might that he represented as the leader of his group. And yet...

And yet, Marcus was here to challenge it.