Then we let the camera blink to itself as we straighten ourselves. We start earning the night, drawers, panels, vents, anywhere a man like Adrian trusts metal more than people.
We don’t speak. We move. He takes the main space with his eyes, and I take the edges. The kitchen is clean enough to be a prop. The island holds a bowl of perfect oranges no one will eat. Bar cart is heavy on whiskey. The couch has the dip of a man who sits where he can see the door. The wall screen shows a muted city feed. I cross to it and check inputs. HDMI 2 carries a dormant recorder signal. He records his own view because he trusts a lens more than loyalty.
Luigi is already at the desk. Low, minimalist, with a hidden tower braced to the underside like a parasite. He slides his hand along the belly and finds the turn catch that opens a panel. I join him and crouch on the opposite side.
“There,” I say. “Bays in tandem. The left should mirror the office. The right will be his personal archive.”
“You’ve been here once?”
“Or twice. I’m observant.”
He nods. He passes me a glove. I put it on and feel the weave snug to my wrist. He kills the unit's power at the strip and pulls the right drive clean with a twist and lift. I bag it. The left we leave for a moment because the mirror writes when it has breath. Let it breathe a little longer while we find the things that don’t live in a casing.
Adrian hides like a child. He likes safes behind art because movies taught him that. He also likes magnets. He can’t help it. He has a boy’s love of gadgets and a coward’s need to be coddled by steel. I move to the kitchen. I pull the toe kick from beneath the refrigerator with two fingers. A small safe blinks its keypad at me from the cavity like a dull eye.
“Two one four,” I whisper. “He’s not original.”
Luigi’s mouth says he is amused without letting the sound out. I key the numbers. The safe clicks and slides. Inside is a suede pouch that feels wrong for jewelry. I open it. A hard drive. Slim. No label. I tip it toward the pendant light and see the faint scratch of a date. The week of my engagement party. I put it in the bag.
Bedroom. The bed is a mess someone smoothed with one hand. Not me. He’s never careless. He wants careless to be seen. I look anyway. I always look. There’s women’s clothing, and I’m tempted to change. The thought disgusts me too much. Eyeing some tennis shoes, I ditch my heels for something more comfortable.
Then Istudy drawer bottoms. Hangers that lift wrong. The mirror frame happens to be wider on the right. I press the hidden catch and a panel opens with a smug little sigh. A small recorder waits with a fresh card slotted in. It has the same make as the one from the office. He likes symmetry. He thinks it makes him safe.
Footsteps. Not ours.
I freeze. Luigi’s head turns. He is at the desk where the left bay finally clicks done. He lifts the mirror drive free and kills the room power with a flick that lives behind the drape. Darkness folds over the condo. The city still glows outside the glass, enough to make shapes into motives. We move to the hallway and flatten to the wall just beyond the coat closet.
The door opens. Two men. They stink like a shift that started three blocks away, sweat, cheap coffee, gun oil. Their weight lands heavy, heel then toe, trained but not enough. The first one carries a bag that clinks. The second one breathes through a deviated septum. My skin goes cold and then hot.
“Generator kicked,” one says. “He said the motion pinged an hour ago. Must be the cleaner.”
Cleaner wouldn’t kill power. Cleaner would not come at night unless he likes losing his job. The first man moves toward the desk. The second walks straight for the bedroom because he knows what waits there. I take the second. Luigitakes the first because there is no other choice that makes sense.
Two steps. I catch the second by the sleeve and turn his momentum past me. My knife kisses his ribs because I prefer warning to waste. He slams into the jamb and comes up angry instead of smart. He reaches for my wrist and finds nothing. I step in. Elbow to his tricep, then another to his throat. His eyes water. He comes blind and swinging. I slide behind him and set the blade where the shirt will hide it. A line. Shallow. A promise. He stills.
“Quiet,” I say.
Luigi doesn’t make a sound. The first man meets a darkness that flows around desks. I see the shape of his hand coming up with a weapon and then I don’t see the hand anymore because it hits the floor with the weapon still in it. Luigi’s knee goes into the man’s stomach and the air leaves him like a ghost. He stays down.
The second man tries a different tack. He smiles through the tear line. It is meant to be disarming. It is meant to make a woman talk. He will not like my answer. I push him into the bedroom and put him against the wall with the mirror that opened, because I like symbolism when I have time for it.
“Who sent you?” I ask.
He lookspast me, calculating doorframes and angles. He doesn’t see the blade until it is flat against his throat, cold and clean.
“Security,” he says. “Tower called. Motion. That is all.”
“Try again,” I say. “This is a private unit. Tower doesn’t override owner’s code on a whim. You aren’t tower. If you were, you would wear steel-toes and a radio on your shoulder, not Italian leather and a pocket clip that belongs to a private gun.”
He glances down and realizes his mistake. “Miss Valentine. I didn’t know it was you.”
I nod to his pocket.
“Phone,” I say. “Slowly.”
He gives it to me with a hand that doesn’t shake, which is how I know he has stood this close to a knife before and walked away with his voice intact. I bring up the last messages. A number without a name. A thread of orders that read like the backside of a receipt: Go now. Use back elevator. If anyone is there, bleed them and clear.
I angle the screen so he can see. I don’t smile even if his words ring true.
