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“That’s the part you’ll like even less. He’s in the city. Arrived two days ago and grabbed a suite at The Carlyle under one of his usual aliases. He’s not hiding, Cain. He wants you to know he’s here.”

I considered that thought and tossed it over in my head. Vincent rarely made himself visible unless visibility served him, so what was the reason? He had to know I would pick up on his movements, so what was the goal here? The answer would not come to me sitting here, watching Sutton’s door that more than likely wasn’t going to open again anytime soon.

“Keep eyes on The Carlyle,” I said. “I want to know who he meets, who he calls, and what he orders for breakfast. If he scratches his nose, I want to know which hand he used.”

“Already on it, but there’s more. My team pulled the transfer timestamps. The first one moved yesterday when we were on the way back from Delaware.”

I don’t believe in coincidences in general, so I know this was done on purpose while I was preoccupied. He had chosen to move while I was retrieving something that mattered to me, which meant one of two things. Either he had gotten lucky, or he knew I had left the city for reasons that had nothing to do with business.

I did not like either option, but I disliked the second far more. It made me wonder if this information had gone further than I thought it had.

“Who knows I went to Delaware?” I asked.

“Inner circle only. Me, the pilot, the men on the ground.” Declan’s voice didn’t waver. “No leaks on our end. I’d stake my life on it.”

He would, too, and I trusted that more than I trusted most things. But Vincent had a way of pulling threads loose that other men didn’t even know existed. If he had connected my absence to a private matter rather than a deal, then he had been watching me longer than I’d accounted for. I did not enjoy the symmetry of that thought given the woman currently sitting behind a closed door in my home.

“Run it down anyway,” I said. “Every person who handled logistics for the trip. I want to know if anyone made a call they shouldn’t have.”

“Understood. What do you want to do next?”

I considered the question for a moment. Under any other circumstance, I would have already been in the car, on my way to The Carlyle to look Vincent in the eye and let him understand the mistake he was making. But I glanced at the screen again. Sutton’s door remained closed, exactly as it had been.

“Set the meeting with Vincent,” I said. “Neutral ground, not The Carlyle. Keep it somewhere off the books. It looks like it’s time for my ‘dear old friend’ and me to have a little chat.”

10

CAIN

The next evening, I checked my watch and noted to myself that she had not moved in forty-one minutes. I knew the exact amount of time because I’d been checking my watch every two minutes to see if she’d leave her room, but apparently that was a fool’s errand.

For the first time in almost an hour, I put the monitor down and worked on fixing the black tie I’d planned on wearing tonight. The knot refused to cooperate which was weird given how a suit and tie are pretty much my daily uniform. I told myself I was having an off day versus it having to do with the woman three rooms away who had reduced me to checking a watch like a man waiting in traffic.

I straightened the tie in the mirror and assessed my reflection. The stitches near my temple were hidden well enough beneath my hair so it was hard for the average person to tell the history between us and that worked for me.

Once I was satisfied with my look for tonight, I left the bedroom and made my way toward the security room. One of Declan’s men stood when I entered. I waved him back down and looked over the feeds from the main dashboard myself. Once I saw that everything was just as I left it a couple of minutes ago, I turned to the other person in the room.

“Status,” I said.

“Quiet, sir. She came out twice. Once to the kitchen, once back. Nineteen minutes total about three hours ago.”

“Anything else?”

He shook his head. “No, sir. She ate. Took the food to her room the second time.”

“Keep the rotation tight while I’m out,” I said. “No one comes up unless I clear it. If she moves, I get notified, but don’t scare her.”

“Understood.”

I left the security room and made my way toward the elevator. Another member of the security team standing in the foyer straightened as I approached, but I held up a hand before he could speak.

“I’ll be reachable,” I said. “If she so much as opens that door, I want to know within the minute.”

He nodded and that was enough for me.

I walked into the elevator, pressed my thumb to the panel and watched the doors close on the penthouse. The ride down to the first floor gave me too much time to think, which was precisely the problem with elevators that only stopped at the top.

I checked my phone and double-checked the confirmation that Declan had sent an hour ago. Vincent and I would be meeting at The Carnal Solstice, a high-class exclusive sex club in the city. It was a place that I was very familiar with and discreet enough that as long as things stayed clean between him and me we should have no issues. Delphine, the owner, ran a clean operation when it came to discretion, which made this the perfect meeting location.