I’d imagine that in no more than forty-eight hours we’ll have the visual and auditory evidence needed.Adrien can move quickly.
The senator’s extortion is a symptom, not the disease.Someone’s monetizing the secrets of the rich and powerful.A quiet marketplace hidden behind velvet ropes.
It’s hardly surprising an enterprising individual wouldn’t attempt to gather and sell information.Every government in the world has intelligence agencies dedicated to doing just that.But, for an employee to do this…whoever set this up didn’t care about repercussions.
The bigger question is…how do they find the buyers?Handle the transaction?
Obviously, the senator is our client, and we want to find the party responsible for his extortion, but Alicia has proof that this is bigger than one senator.My gut’s telling me we’ve stumbled on an operation.The senator is being blackmailed over his vote on pending legislation, but someone with access to the secrets of the rich and powerful owns a goldmine.CEOs discussing mergers.Celebrities arranging NDAs.Foreign diplomats negotiating contracts.Every conversation in The Sanctuary is currency to the right buyer.For all his talk about privacy and pleasure, Adrien built a marketplace of secrets.Now it’s consuming itself.
My phone lights up with an incoming text.
Hudson
Status?
“Hudson wants to know our status.”
“I’m sure he does,” Quinn says.
That’s an odd response.But then again, she’s the one who works with him day in and day out down in the mountains.
“You two not getting along?”
Her fingers still on the keyboard, the only sign she heard me.I wait.She’ll either tell me or she won’t, but in my experience, silence is an excellent ally when wanting someone to open up.Her fingers resume tapping, and she says, “He’s a lot.”
“What does that mean” is on the tip of my tongue, but she’s aware enough to know an explanation is needed.
“He’s protective.Sometimes overly so.”She glances at me, a flash of something unguarded—fatigue?resentment?—before returning to the screen.“Reminds me why I prefer working alone.”
In my experience with him, he’s direct and no nonsense, but then again, she sees all his sides.He hadn’t wanted her to come here today.Clearly, she needed to be here to effectively do her job, but maybe he finds her to be a lot too.
While I don’t have a legion of close friends, mostly thanks to my joining the CIA and purposefully severing past relationships, I’m savvy enough to know that pointing out he might have the same opinion of her won’t endear me to Quinn.
“Hudson sent you here because he trusts your skill, not because he wants you in danger,” I say, testing the waters.
“Hudson sent me here because I’m the only one who can do this fast enough.”She doesn’t look up.“The trust part is...complicated.”
I file that away.Team fractures are vulnerabilities—ones I’ll need to navigate if this job extends beyond Adrien’s club.
I glance at my phone: 12:47.We need to be gone before staff might drift in.
“Anything I can do to help?”
She twists in her seat, eyes squinted like I spoke to her in German.
“With what you’re doing right now.”I point to the basicblack-and-white clock on the wall and say, “It’s getting late.We want to be out of here by two.”
“Oh.”Her eyelids close and with a quick shake of her head, she turns back.“Right.I’ll be done in just one sec.”
I send a message to Hudson telling him we’re almost done.As I’m tapping that out, a message from Hudson comes through.
Hudson
Noah’s going to Alicia Morgan’s offices to do a security check.Can you loop back with Adrien?See if there’s anything he’s not telling us.
Interesting.It was pretty clear Adrien’s broadsided by this, but maybe Hudson’s worried he’s keeping some secrets close to the vest.
Me
