Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Brie
Quinn taps away at the keyboard, her long, thick curls twisted up with a tortoiseshell comb that catches the fluorescent light with each head tilt.
The mechanical clicking is rhythmic, almost meditative.
She looks every bit like a newly minted assistant professor or grad student, and nothing like a hacker with the ability to break laws at whim.
The discovery of the server room sits foremost in my mind as I watch Quinn work.
Someone has been systematically violating the trust of Adrien’s members—and whether intentional or not, he’s been complicit.
The man who showed me genuine tenderness in Monaco has built his expansion on a foundation that’s rotting from within.
The realization burns—not because of the operation, but because Adrien believed in this place, and he’ll feel betrayed when he realizes just how deep the decay runs.
Noah’s in the basement, searching for places to install surveillance hardware that won’t be noticed, and given the dim lighting, it’s conceivable he’ll be successful, but what Quinn’s doing holds more promise.
“You’re sure the loop won’t flag?” I replay, reviewing my handiwork, searching for any telltale static where I’ve taped over the recorded surveillance tape, but given we’re looping in still scenes, there’s not much to catch us.
“Someone would have to study the files to pick it up. Typically surveillance isn’t studied until after an incident, and if they’re unaware of the incident, today’s footage will probably get trashed. You said there are notations on files?”
Quinn hasn’t left the security room since arriving in the building.
“And numerical notations that I assume are part of an organizational system.”
“Right. So someone is going through the tapes and juicing it. Discarding the pulp I’d imagine. A bunch of recordings of no one being in the building is a fast discard.”
I agree.
I’d imagine that in no more than forty-eight hours we’ll have the visual and auditory evidence needed. Adrien can move quickly.
The senator’s extortion is a symptom, not the disease. Someone’s monetizing the secrets of the rich and powerful. A quiet marketplace hidden behind velvet ropes.
It’s hardly surprising an enterprising individual wouldn’t attempt to gather and sell information. Every government in the world has intelligence agencies dedicated to doing just that. But, for an employee to do this…whoever set this up didn’t care about repercussions.
The bigger question is…how do they find the buyers? Handle the transaction?
Obviously, the senator is our client, and we want to find the party responsible for his extortion, but Alicia has proof that this is bigger than one senator.
My gut’s telling me we’ve stumbled on an operation.
The senator is being blackmailed over his vote on pending legislation, but someone with access to the secrets of the rich and powerful owns a goldmine.
CEOs discussing mergers. Celebrities arranging NDAs.
Foreign diplomats negotiating contracts.
Every conversation in The Sanctuary is currency to the right buyer.
For all his talk about privacy and pleasure, Adrien built a marketplace of secrets. Now it’s consuming itself.
My phone lights up with an incoming text.
Hudson
Status?
“Hudson wants to know our status.”
“I’m sure he does,” Quinn says.
That’s an odd response. But then again, she’s the one who works with him day in and day out down in the mountains.
“You two not getting along?”
Her fingers still on the keyboard, the only sign she heard me. I wait. She’ll either tell me or she won’t, but in my experience, silence is an excellent ally when wanting someone to open up. Her fingers resume tapping, and she says, “He’s a lot.”
“What does that mean” is on the tip of my tongue, but she’s aware enough to know an explanation is needed.
“He’s protective. Sometimes overly so.” She glances at me, a flash of something unguarded—fatigue? resentment?—before returning to the screen. “Reminds me why I prefer working alone.”
In my experience with him, he’s direct and no nonsense, but then again, she sees all his sides. He hadn’t wanted her to come here today. Clearly, she needed to be here to effectively do her job, but maybe he finds her to be a lot too.
While I don’t have a legion of close friends, mostly thanks to my joining the CIA and purposefully severing past relationships, I’m savvy enough to know that pointing out he might have the same opinion of her won’t endear me to Quinn.
“Hudson sent you here because he trusts your skill, not because he wants you in danger,” I say, testing the waters.
“Hudson sent me here because I’m the only one who can do this fast enough.” She doesn’t look up. “The trust part is...complicated.”
I file that away. Team fractures are vulnerabilities—ones I’ll need to navigate if this job extends beyond Adrien’s club.
I glance at my phone: 12:47. We need to be gone before staff might drift in.
“Anything I can do to help?”
She twists in her seat, eyes squinted like I spoke to her in German.
“With what you’re doing right now.” I point to the basic black-and-white clock on the wall and say, “It’s getting late. We want to be out of here by two.”
“Oh.” Her eyelids close and with a quick shake of her head, she turns back. “Right. I’ll be done in just one sec.”
I send a message to Hudson telling him we’re almost done. As I’m tapping that out, a message from Hudson comes through.
Hudson
Noah’s going to Alicia Morgan’s offices to do a security check. Can you loop back with Adrien? See if there’s anything he’s not telling us.
Interesting. It was pretty clear Adrien’s broadsided by this, but maybe Hudson’s worried he’s keeping some secrets close to the vest.
Me
Sure
“What’s the matter?” Quinn asks.
“Nothing. Why?”
“You sighed.” My gaze lifts from my phone screen to the back of Quinn’s head. “Noah said you and Adrien had history.”
He did, did he?
“From a different life,” I say, knowing that’s all I need to say for Quinn to understand.
“Well, I suspect Adrien’s part of this op will wrap up shortly. Unless you can convince him to let us keep pulling the thread.”
She’s right. “The problem with letting it run is that every day this continues, more members get compromised. But shut it down too early, and we lose our chance to identify the buyers. Adrien’s caught between protecting his business and stopping a larger operation.”
“There’s no need for him to stress. We won’t be able to monitor for long. Someone’s going to catch on.”
“How long do you think we have?”
“Based on the setup downstairs? This isn’t amateur hour. Whoever’s running this will notice any disruption quickly. Days, not weeks.”
“He was thinking about shutting everything down today, and I talked him out of it.”
“Keep talking him out of it.” There’s one last click of keys and the monitor screen shifts to black. “I’m done here. Let’s go.”
“How much footage are we talking about?” I ask. “I mean, how much are they gathering and keeping?”
“Based on the server capacity? Years worth. This operation has been running for a long time.” Quinn frowns. “And the organizational system suggests multiple buyers. This isn’t a one-off—it’s a marketplace.”
I stand, scanning the space one last time. “It does seem someone with an operation like this would set up their own monitoring system. I mean, when you do something like this, you’ve got to think to yourself that it’s a matter of when, not if, you’re going to get caught.”
“You would think. But that’s the addiction, right? Or maybe not addiction—arrogance. People who set up operations like this believe they’re smarter than everyone else.”
“A smart operator would recruit from the models with club access. Built-in cover, natural access to members.”
Quinn pauses, thinking it through. “No. That’s risky too. And one of them could tell someone they’d been recruited. Technology. It’s everywhere and so misunderstood. And it doesn’t gossip.”
She smiles like it’s a wicked good thing.
“Maybe,” I say, holding the door for her. “But in my experience, sexy delivers.”
“Useful for some.” Her tone is neutral, but the implication lands: You’re one of those people.
I could tell her that most of my covers dress me down—that the best disguises are forgettable, that beauty is a tool I wield, not who I am.
But Quinn’s already down the corridor and explaining feels like proving something I don’t owe her.
The best disguises are forgettable, and when trashed, leave no semblance to the person beneath.
When we reach the bottom floor, taking care to follow the path of the looped surveillance footage, we exit the building. Adrien is waiting with Noah.
We each have our directives, and not much is said before we part ways, with Noah and Quinn heading off to get a cab on the avenue.
After they’re out of sight, I turn to Adrien. “Are we going back to your office or…”
A black sedan pulls up to the curb and Adrien opens the back door.
“What’s this? Where are we—”
“I’m sending you home. I’m not done for the day. My driver will take you.”
“I could’ve gotten a cab with the others.” I’m affronted, but the part of me that’s most flustered is the part that will have to report back to my boss that I didn’t get more from Adrien.
“Please. Do me this favor.” I open my mouth to argue, but he says, “I’d already asked the driver here and something came up. Take the car.”
He sounds like he’s managing a subordinate, and it grates. Three years ago, he opened doors because he wanted to, not because he was orchestrating logistics. Now everything between us is transactional.
“And we can meet up…for an early dinner?”
The question lands softer than his tone. There’s something tentative in it—a crack in the executive veneer. For an instant, the yacht resurfaces—the gentle sway of the sea, the feel of silk against my skin, his touch. I blink, forcing the image away. Professional. Always professional.
My first instinct is to decline, to keep this clean and compartmentalized. But Hudson wants me to loop back, to probe for what Adrien might be holding close. And if I’m honest, part of me wants to say yes for reasons that have nothing to do with the job.
“Text me the address,” I say, keeping my tone neutral. Professional.
As the sedan pulls away, I catch his reflection in the rearview. He’s still standing there, watching. I look away first.