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Her expression softens. The change is subtle, but I notice everything about her now. "Come with me."

The request lands somewhere it shouldn't.

"In a minute."

She searches my face long enough to know I'm lying, but she doesn't argue. "One minute in normal human time, Adrianos. Not Mafia time, where a minute apparently lasts until somebody dies."

I watch her disappear into the bedroom. Then my phone vibrates.

Evander.

"We have a problem."

Every muscle in my body locks. "What?"

"Camera seventeen went down."

I turn toward the security monitor. Camera seventeen covers the service corridor two floors beneath the penthouse, where the building's maintenance lift and emergency stairwell meet.

"How long?"

"Twenty-six seconds. It is back now. The system shows a reset."

"Cause?"

"Authorized maintenance access."

I am already moving toward the bedroom. "At midnight?"

Silence follows. Then Evander swears.

"Seal the service lift and send both men to the stairwell," I order. "Nobody reaches this floor."

The lights go out before he answers.

Not completely. The main system dies while emergency lighting floods the penthouse in dim amber, turning familiar corridors into strips of shadow. My phone loses signal at the same moment.

I stop. This is not a power failure.

The bedroom door slams inside its frame with the heavy metallic sound of security bolts dropping into place.

"Elena!"

I reach the door and grab the handle. It does not move.

"Elena!"

"I'm here."

Relief hits hard enough to hurt. Her voice comes through the door, tight but controlled.

"Step away from the door."

"I didn't lock it."

"I know."

The indicator on the electronic panel burns red. Someone has activated the internal security partitions. The penthouse is designed to isolate rooms during an intrusion, trapping an attacker in one section while allowing my security team to move through another. The main bedroom door is one of the strongest barriers in the system.