His name lights the screen, elegant and infuriating.I shouldn’t feel the rush in my chest.The sting of longing threads irritation.Focus, Brie.
With an eyeroll, I slip my phone into my skirt pocket.As I climb into the back of the car service Hudson arranged, watching Jake’s blue dot pursue the Mercedes on Quinn’s tracking screen, I realize this isn’t going to wrap quickly—we’ve butted into the sharp edge of an iceberg.
“Hudson,” I say into my comm unit.“We need to expand the scope of this investigation.I think we just watched Eddie get his next assignment.Crawford was likely a one-off.This woman’s a professional.She’s working for someone.”
“We lost the Mercedes.Dammit,” Jake says.
“Were they onto you?”Hudson asks.
“No, I don’t think so.Light changed.Pedestrians flooded the intersection.We couldn’t follow.”
“Copy that,” Hudson says.
Losing the lead is disappointing, but for the first time, it feels like we’re finally hunting the hunter instead of just on cleanup duty.
“Eddie’s car is headed back to The Sanctuary.”
“He’s on for evening service,” I say.
“Copy that,” Hudson says.“Jake, Noah, head back, resume surveillance.Let’s watch him.See if he stays the night.”
As my car pulls away from the waterfront, I catch one last glimpse of the park bench facing the river.The trash cans off to the side by a light post.
Watching Eddie, he played his role well.Casual.Unbothered.A meeting—or an exchange.Effortless.
The river glints like liquid glass, catching a smear of sun.Everything looks polished from a distance—like beauty concealing rot, as the car pulls away.Eddie plays his role to perfection.Maybe we all do, until the script slips—and the truth takes the stage.
ChapterSeventeen
Adrien
All afternoon I pretended to focus on business—the phone beside me like an unanswered question I didn’t dare touch.The marketing meeting dragged—another circular debate about Halloween themes.At The Sanctuary, fantasy sells itself.I should’ve stayed away; watching people package desire was too on-the-nose today.
Rhonda lobbied for masquerade, Boyton for “fantasy-forward.”We host masquerades twice a month—hardly innovation.Common sense should’ve prevailed without me.
I push open my office door—annoyed that “soon” became an hour—and stop short.Tommy’s sprawled across the sofa, coat and briefcase claiming half of it, highball glass in hand, amber light catching the ice.
I make a show of checking my wrist.“Half-day for judges?”
“Case settled early.I’m clear for the day.Just came from The Crescendo—six models at the bar from a catalog shoot.”
His mention of models sends my hand to my phone.No missed calls.No text.Just silence dressed in glass and light.
“What am I saying—you’re burned out on models.Hudson Yards?”
“I burned out on performance,” I say with a defensive edge.“Everyone chasing the same illusion.”
He arches a brow, waiting for more, but I leave it there.The Sanctuary attracts people who use beauty as currency.Once, I traded in it freely.Now there’s only one woman I want to know beyond the surface.
Beautiful young women and men are desperate for invites to The Sanctuary—all with the hope of landing a relationship that will pay the bills.If the young guests only wished to party, they’d head to a cracking club.No, when they saunter in, knowing full well they can’t be photographed, to parties that won’t make the papers, they’re coming here in the hopes of making a connection—one that ranks as lucrative.A trade of sorts in a circular world where there’s no such thing as enough.
“Tired?”He laughs.“You—the curator of scandal?”
I give him a look.When I bought The Sanctuary it thrived on spectacle, not solace, and I’ve spent years changing that.Sex sells, but power and privacy keep them returning.A true sanctuary offers both—pleasure and silence.
“Something’s off,” Tommy says, tipping his glass at me.“That woman—she ghost again?”
“You’re imagining things.”
