She falls back against the seat, stunned. The finality of the action seems to break her. She turns away, pressing her forehead against the cold glass of the window, watching the city blur into streaks of light.
“Sit back,” I command. “It’s a long drive.”
I return my focus to the road, but my mind begins to disassemble the last twenty minutes, taking apart the encounter like a mechanic stripping an engine. I replay the moment in the VIP Study. The shattered vase. The water spreading on the floor. The way she stood there, clutching her chest, staring at the body of Elias Vane.
She was terrified, yes. But her eyes... they were assessing. Calculating.
She looked at me the way I look at targets. She cataloged the gun, the folder, the exit. That is not the behavior of someone who deals with flowers; that is the behavior of someone trained in situational awareness. Or perhaps someone who has seen violence before.
And her clothes. They’re expensive, but casual. Like she rolled out of bed. Who goes to a closed museum in the middle of the night in casual wear?
A florist,she said.I was fixing the flowers.
It’s a good cover story. Plausible, given the white hydrangeas scattered on the floor. But convenient.
Too convenient.
It’s the kind of cover story the Syndicate would cook up because it’s boring. Nobody looks twice at the help. Nobody suspects the gardener, the maid, the florist. They are invisible.
If she is a florist, she has the worst luck in the history of this city.
But if she isn’t...
My paranoia—the instinct that has kept me alive for five years while other Dons ended up in graves or cells—starts to spin a different narrative.
Theory One: She’s the lookout. Elias was the bomber; she was the spotter coming in to check the device. That explains the timing and the lack of screaming.
Theory Two: She’s with the Syndicate. Kirill and Volkov’s faction has been probing my borders for months. Maybe they sent her to retrieve Elias’s folder, she saw me, and realized she was burned. The helpless civilian act is the oldest trick in the book.
I reach for the secure phone on the center console. I need to close the loop.
I dial Varro.
He picks up on the first ring.
“Status,” I say.
“Shipment is secure,” he replies. “We’re holding at the port until tomorrow night. What’s the situation?”
“New objective.” I keep my eyes on the road, my peripheral vision locked on the girl in the back. “The museum. Service lane. There’s a civilian vehicle parked near the dumpsters. Silver sedan.”
There’s a rustle of movement on Varro’s end. “You want it moved?”
“I want it gone,” I say. “Torch it. Make it look like a theft gone wrong. I don’t want a trace of that vehicle left in the alley. No loose ends.”
“Copy that. I’ll have the ground team handle it. What about the owner?”
I look in the mirror again. The girl blinks, a slow movement. She heard me order the destruction of her car, but she doesn’t react. She just stares blankly at the back of my seat, seemingly accepting her fate.
“I have the owner.”
“Understood,” he says, his tone shifting from casual to tactical. “Bringing them to the Fortress?”
“Yes. Prepare the holding cell. And Varro?”
“Boss?”
“Keep the team on high alert. The target at the museum wasn’t working alone. He had intel. Detailed schematics. This wasn’t a random act of terror. Someone fed him the layout.”
