She loved this place.That was obvious.She’d fight for it with everything she had.
And I was going to take it from her anyway.
I was contemplating whether to approach her now or wait when the corgis announced themselves.
A chorus of yips and the scrabble of small claws on marble.An elderly woman rounded the corner from the garden entrance, wrapped in a silk robe the color of rubies.Eight corgis fanned out around her like a royal guard.
Maya Pavlova.I recognized her from the files.Retired opera singer.Long-term resident.One of Lena’s few genuine connections in the hotel.She’d taught the girl piano as a child.A surrogate grandmother for the one she never had.
Another pressure point.Another weakness to exploit.
Lena’s entire body changed when she saw the dogs.
The tension drained out of her shoulders.Her professional mask crumbled, replaced by something genuine.Young.Unguarded.She crouched down and let the pack swarm her, laughing as cold noses bumped against her legs and fuzzy bodies competed for her attention.
That laugh.Christ.It hit me somewhere I didn’t want to examine.
One corgi in particular caught my eye.Smaller than the others, with a ginger-colored coat and a white blaze on its chest.It planted itself on Lena’s feet and refused to move, gazing up at her with obvious adoration.
“Winston, you ridiculous creature.”She scratched behind its ears.Her voice had gone soft.Tender.“Did you miss me?”
The dog’s entire body wiggled with joy.
She is good,the wolf said.Pure.Ours to cherish.
I filed the information away.The corgis.Her attachment to them.The way her whole face lit up when she saw them.Everyone has a breaking point.Sometimes it’s money.Sometimes it’s pride.Sometimes it’s something softer.
Maya said something I couldn’t hear, and Lena laughed again.The old woman patted her cheek with obvious affection before herding her pack toward the elevator.Lena watched them go, still smiling.Still unguarded.
Then the smile faded.She glanced around the lobby, and for a moment I thought she’d spotted me.But her gaze passed over my corner table without stopping.She didn’t know she was being watched.
She never did.
I watched her make a slow circuit of the lobby, checking in with staff, straightening a vase of flowers, adjusting a crooked painting.Small things.Unnecessary things.The actions of someone who needed to keep moving or she’d collapse.
Just after nine, she slipped through a side door toward the gardens.
I gave her a thirty-second head start.Then I followed.
I tracked her by smell as much as sight.Apples and cream, threaded now with exhaustion and the faint salt of stress.She hadn’t noticed me in the restaurant.Hadn’t felt my eyes on her all evening.
Prey should know when they’re being hunted.The fact that she didn’t made this almost too easy.
The garden behind the hotel was old and overgrown in places, a maze of hedges and flower beds that had probably been impressive fifty years ago.At its center stood a hedge labyrinth, the kind of romantic folly that wealthy families built to impress their guests.
The hedges were eight feet tall.High enough for privacy.High enough that no one would hear her if she screamed.
Not that I planned to make her scream.Not tonight.
Lena walked the path without hesitation.She’d done this before, probably hundreds of times.A childhood escape route, now a place to hide from the weight of responsibility.
I found her on a stone bench at the labyrinth’s center.She sat with her head tipped back, eyes closed, breathing slowly.The moonlight caught the curve of her throat, the soft swell of her breasts, the delicate architecture of her collarbones.
She didn’t know I was there.Didn’t know she was being watched.
I could do anything right now.Take anything.She was alone, exhausted, vulnerable.One hand over her mouth and I could have her against the hedge before she even understood what was happening.
The wolf surged at the thought.Not in protest.In anticipation.
