I exhaled, tension unraveling in my chest. I watched the black sedan pull away, disappearing into the London labyrinth.
I'd been tracking Rowan Quill for six months. Not stalking, just monitoring. Ever since she and that Omega engineer dropped the Omega-Safe Rider with Riot Theory, she'd been on our radar. A Beta manager who'd weaponized contract law against the music industry and lived to tell about it.
We'd watched her embed protection clauses into dozens of touring contracts. Watched venues adopt her standards. Watched the industry slowly, grudgingly shift because one stubborn Beta with a clipboard refused to let artists get eaten alive.
The agencies and handlers had noticed too. They'd tried soft pressure first, buyout offers, poaching attempts, reputation whispers. When those failed, they went nuclear. They just needed the right executive with the right grudge and the right platform.
Julian Vance was that executive. And tonight's hot mic probably wasn't an accident, it was a setup. They'd been waiting for Rowan to do what she always did, delete the clause, stand her ground, prove she had teeth.
Then they painted a target on her back and released the hounds.
Two years ago, we'd failed to protect someone like her. Different industry sector, same tactics. This time, I wasn't going to be late.
"She called us headhunters," I said, disconnecting the call. I spun my chair around to face Mateo.
"She’s not wrong," Mateo rumbled, a dark amusement coloring his tone. "We just hunt differently."
"Clean the footage," I ordered. "Delete the camera buffer from the laundry service. I don't want a digital trail of herentering our vehicle. And scrub the timeline for her mother’s address. Replace it with a decoy location in Manchester."
"Done," Mateo said, already typing on his handheld.
I looked back at the empty alley on the screen, the rain washing away the scent of her fear.
"Get the guest room ready," I said. "And for god's sake, Mateo, put the high-thread-count sheets on the bed. If she sleeps on polyester tonight, she might actually sue us."
"You like her," Mateo noted. Not a question.
"I like her data," I corrected, turning back to the glowing monitors, to the beautiful, chaotic story I was about to rewrite. "She’s a mess. But the data? The data is flawless."
FOUR
Rowan
The car smelled of new leather and aggressive climate control. It was a sensory vacuum, sealed tight against the London rain and the digital firestorm currently eating my life alive.
The driver, Stephen, didn’t speak. He drove with a terrifying, surgical precision, his hands relaxed on the wheel of the armored sedan. He wore a suit that cost more than my rent, and the air around him smelled faintly of expensive stationery and bergamot. He felt less like a getaway driver and more like a presiding judge.
We didn't go to a warehouse. We didn’t go to a safehouse in the suburbs.
We pulled up to a monolith of glass and steel, a needle of architecture piercing the low-hanging clouds. It screamed money. Not new money, not the loud, flashy kind Vance threw around, but the quiet, tidal kind of money that moved governments.
"The garage is secure," Stephen said. It was the first thing he’d said in twenty minutes. "Biometric entry only. Don't look at the cameras, Ms. Quill. They log iris patterns."
I adjusted my grip on my folio. My knuckles were white. "I thought I was being extracted, not inducted."
"You’re being processed," he corrected smoothly.
The car slid into a private bay. The engine died. The silence that followed was heavy.
Stephen got out and opened my door. He didn't offer a hand. It was like he knew, somehow, that I would slap it away, but he stood close enough to shield me from the empty concrete space.
"Elevator," he directed, gesturing with a sharp nod. When we approached he scanned his hand at a biometric panel, which made me curious, but not curious enough to ask about it.
We rose fifty floors in seconds, the pressure change popping in my ears. When the doors slid open, we weren't in an office. We were in a sanctuary.
The corridor was lined with dark wood and hushed lighting. It smelled of ozone and power. I felt small, dirty, like a smudge on a pristine lens.
He opened a set of double doors at the end of the hall.
