The music is still playing behind the building. My shift isn’t over, and nobody knows I’ve left. Adrian isn’t in the car yet.
I don’t let myself think any harder than that. If I do, I’ll open the door and run.
8
ADRIAN
The penthouse occupies the thirty-second floor of a building I own through a holding company registered in the Cayman Islands. It has three bedrooms, a secure elevator requiring biometric access, and windows that run the full height of the walls overlooking Biscayne Bay. This is my private residence when I need silence, the place I come when the estate feels too large, too populated, and I want to think without interruption. Besides cleaning and maintenance staff, Viktor is the only other person who has ever been inside it.
I show Aurora the guest suite at the end of the hall. A bag from her apartment is already on the bed, which doesn’t surprise me. Viktor is efficient and keeps only efficient people on his team.
She walks in and stands in the center of the room without touching anything. She hasn’t spoken since we left the car. She’s clearly thinking, and it’s fascinating to watch her work. Silence first. Then evaluation. Decisions only after she’s clear on what she’s looking at.
She opens the closet, looks inside without interest, and closes it again. She checks the bathroom door, confirms it locks from the inside, and returns to the center of the room. The sequence is methodical. She’s noting exits and security the same way I did at the Echelon floor on my first visit. She thinks like me. That makes me uncomfortable in ways I don’t want to examine.
“The bathroom is through there.” I lean against the door frame and keep my voice neutral. “The kitchen is stocked. The security system requires a code to enter or exit, and I’ll give you the code in the morning.”
She turns to look at me through narrowed eyes. “In the morning?”
“You’re not a prisoner, Aurora. The code is for your safety, and you’ll have it as soon as Viktor finishes updating the access protocols.”
“That sounds like something you might say right before locking the door.”
The comment stings because I understand her wariness. She watched me kill someone an hour ago, and now I’m standing in her doorway explaining security codes and stocked kitchens like I’m a hotel concierge. It’s absurd, but it’s also her new reality for now.
“If I wanted to lock you in, I wouldn’t tell you about the code.” I push off the door frame. “Get some rest. We have a lot to discuss in the morning.”
I close the door and walk down the hall to my own room, where I don’t sleep. I sit on the edge of the bed and run through the logistics of what I’ve just done instead.
I brought Aurora Moore into my personal property. Not a safehouse or a secondary location managed by Viktor’s security team. I could have chosen the apartment in Coral Gables I maintain specifically for situations that require temporary relocation of people connected to my operations.
Instead, I brought her here, to the place where I come to find peace and recenter, because I wanted her close. I dressed that want in the language of protection because protection is the only justification that doesn’t require me to admit what this actually is.
I could have sent her to the Coral Gables apartment. Viktor would have placed two men on the building, monitored her communications, and kept her invisible until the investigation ran its course. She would have been safe and completely separated from my personal life. That was the correct option. That was the option any competent operator would choose when managing a witness who also happens to be someone with whom he’s sleeping.
I didn’t choose it, offer it, or even mention it existed. Aurora asked me for safety, and I gave her my refuge instead of a secure location while telling myself the difference didn’t matter, but it does. The Coral Gables apartment is operational infrastructure. This penthouse is where I come when I need to think clearly, and I’ve just installed the primary obstacle to my clear thinking in the guest room down the hall.
I suddenly hear my mother’s voice in my head again.Your father confused attraction with control.I told her I wasn’t Sergei. If it started, I would see it. I’m sure of that, but…I don’t test the assumption.
By four in the morning,I’ve shifted from self-examination to damage control. Viktor arrives at the penthouse with his tablet, two phones, and a thermos of black coffee that he sets on the kitchen counter without comment.
The penthouse has an expensive coffeemaker, but he refuses to learn the functions to make coffee, espresso, and cappuccino. He once told me, “I’m not going to use a machine that’s more complicated than flying the helicopter just to make coffee.”
He’s a philistine when it comes to coffee, willing to drink any swill, so I’ve stopped urging him to try the exquisite concoctions. I have this identical machine at every property I own. Good coffee is a must, along with good vodka.
We work at the dining table with the city lights spread out below us and Aurora’s closed door visible at the end of the hall.
“Echelon’s footage is wiped, including the backup archive.” Viktor scrolls through his report. “Aurora’s presence at the club tonight has no digital record. Staff have been contacted and briefed. All appear cooperative and didn’t see anything. The generous bonuses I gave each one tonight are contingent on them remembering that. I explained the consequences would expand well beyond having to repay the money.”
That’s the typical protocol in situations like these. We can’t control every variable, but money and threats make most fall in line. “Did any of them quit?”
“A hostess who started two weeks ago accepted the money and signed an NDA. She was shaken up by the experienceand apparently realized exactly what kind of club Echelon is tonight.” He looks up to meet my gaze. “She’ll be appropriately monitored for the next several weeks to ensure she’s not a weak link, but I don’t anticipate any problems. She was timid, so she’ll mostly likely take the money and run far from Miami.”
I nod in satisfaction. “Dominic?”
“Everything has been staged. I sent Fedor to leave evidence of hasty packing in his condo. He packed a bag hastily, as Dominic would have, and brought it with him. He also took Dominic’s passport and left his safe open with a few stray hundred dollar bills, suggesting Dominic packed in a rush and left behind some money.”
I nod, impressed an employee on the payroll less than a year thought of it. “That was good instinct on his part. Did you tell him to do that?”
