She doesn't react in appreciation or horror. She just looks. Absorbs. Processes. When she finally speaks, her face stays neutral, but her hands—those carefully controlled hands—curl slightly at her sides. Self-soothing again. Preparing for emotional impact.
Lucien introduces her to Vera Molina. They speak briefly. Vera hands her champagne, says very few words, gestures toward the rest of the exhibition. Then Lucien excuses himself—other patrons to greet, other manipulations to orchestrate—leaving Lana alone with the art.
And I watch her walk the gallery systematically, spending time with each piece. There's a video installation showing a woman repeating "I'm fine" in progressively emptier tones. Lana watches the entire three-minute loop, her face reflecting the screen's glow, her expression shifting through micro-changes I can't quite decode. Recognition? Grief? Or both?
She moves to a painting of a beautiful house with barred windows. Stands in front of it for two minutes and seventeen seconds. Her right hand rises toward the frame, stops inches away, falls back to her side. She wanted to touch it but she stopped herself. Why?
Then she reaches the far corner, and I see the moment her whole body goes rigid.
Camera 14 shows me what she's seeing: a photograph of a terrace at night. Rain-slicked stone. A railing barely visible in darkness. Beyond it, void. The title card readsThe Drop.
She stands in front of it for eight minutes, thirty-seven seconds. I time it because I can't stop watching her watch the photograph. Other patrons notice, give her space, whisper to each other. But she doesn't move. Just stares at that terrace like she's seeing something the photograph can't show.
Like she's remembering.
Then a man approaches her, and every muscle in my body goes tense.
I switch angles, trying to get a clear view of his face. Camera 14 gives me his back—tall, broad shoulders, dark suit that fits like it was made for him. He's speaking to her, gesturing at the photograph. She turns, and even through the monitor I can see her surprise, then guardedness, then something that might be interest.
The man shifts position. Camera 9 catches his profile.
Elias.
What the fuck is Elias doing here?
My phone is in my hand before I consciously decide to reach for it. Text to Lucien:Elias Voss is here. Did you invite him?
The response takes three minutes. Three minutes where I watch Elias and Lana have a conversation I can't hear, standing in front of a photograph of a terrace that looks uncomfortably similar to the one where her husband died. Three minutes where my mentor—the man who trained me, sent me away, then connected me with Lucien—talks to the woman I've been watching obsessively for a week.
Lucien's text arrives:Last minute addition. Why?
Because Elias doesn't do last minute. Because everything he does is calculated three moves ahead. Because seeing him here, now, talking to her, feels like a test I didn't know I was taking.
I don't respond. Just watch.
They're still talking. Elias says very few words, gestures toward the photograph again. Lana responds, her face more animated than I've seen it. She's being honest with him in a way she wasn't with Lucien, wasn't with anyone else tonight. The performance has dropped. She's saying very few words that I desperately want to hear.
Then Lucien appears in frame. Sees them together. His expression does exactly what I expected—calculation wrapped in practiced warmth. He says a few words. Elias responds with that edge I recognize, the one he uses when he's making a point without stating it explicitly. Lana looks between them, sensing the tension, and excuses herself.
Smart. Get out before you become collateral in whatever power game they're playing.
She moves away from them, weaving through the gallery, but her body language has changed. More closed. Defensive. Whatever she was feeling in front of that photograph—whatever vulnerability she'd allowed herself—has been locked away again.
I track her across my screens. She finishes her champagne, sets the glass on a server's tray, walks toward the hallway that leads to the restrooms. Camera 7 catches her entering the corridor. She doesn't look back. Just walks with purpose, like she needs escape more than she needs to maintain appearances.
The bathroom door closes behind her.
I switch to waiting. The hallway camera can't see inside the restroom—privacy laws, consent protocols, the boundaries Lucien insists on maintaining—so I'm left watching an empty corridor and wondering what she's doing in there. Composing herself? Breaking down? Both?
My phone rings. Lucien.
I answer. "Yes."
"Come to my office." His tone is clipped. "Now."
"I'm monitoring the exhibition."
"The exhibition can wait five minutes. My office. Now."
