Chapter 39
Fuck Alejandro and his selective honesty.
Fuck the pauses, the omissions, the way he talks like he’s thinking three moves ahead while refusing to tell me which board we’re playing on. I’m done letting him meter information like it’s his to ration. Whatever happens after this brunch, I’m telling him to fuck off and meaning it.
I move with the line of staff, tray balanced, champagne bottle cold and sweating against my palm. My eyes never leave Hartley.
He’s holding a flute. Still mostly full.
He keeps lifting it, taking small distracted sips, the way men do when they’re listening just enough to seem polite while scanning for their next conversation.
He’s relaxed. Comfortable. Untouched by the idea that someone, somewhere, has decided he’s a message.
That flute is my opening.
I adjust my pace, angling toward him, already calculating the distance, the timing, the exact phrasing. Not a warning. Not a speech. Just enough to force movement. Enough to break pattern.
Someone steps directly into my path.
Another server. Too close. Too slow. I shift around them without a word, but the half-second costs me. A woman to my left catches my eye, lifts her empty glass with a hopeful tilt.
I stop.
I pour.
The champagne foams up obediently, bubbles racing to the surface like they have somewhere better to be. I keep my face neutral, my irritation buried deep and sharp. This is the job. This is the disguise. I finish the pour, nod once, and move on.
Hartley is alone now.
Not fully. Never fully. But the ring around him has loosened just enough. He takes another sip, glancing over the room like he’s shopping for attention.
Now.
I step into his space, bottle angled over his glass, posture perfect.
“Mr. Hartley,” I say quietly.
He looks at me, eyes flicking from the bottle to my face. He nods, already smiling, the kind of smile that assumes admiration is about to follow.
It doesn’t.
The sound comes from my right. A sharp, violent clatter that doesn’t belong in a room like this.
Glass shatters.
Someone shouts.
Security moves before the echo finishes bouncing off the walls. Hartley is yanked backward, his glass forgotten, his body shielded as men close ranks around him. The bubble compresses and hardens, impenetrable in less than a second.
My moment is gone.
I pivot instinctively, scanning for the source, and my stomach drops.
Alejandro is on the floor.
His tray lying half a foot away like it’s been flung aside. Champagne and orange juice spread across the carpet in a bright, obscene spill. Another server stands frozen nearby, her tray of fresh mimosas tipped, two glasses shattered at her feet.
Alejandro looks up at me.
For a heartbeat, I can’t read his expression.
Pain, maybe. Surprise. Or something else entirely. Something that looks uncomfortably like satisfaction. Like the quiet relief of someone who has successfully stopped something without having to say why.
Then it’s gone, smoothed away behind his usual control.
Staff flood the space instantly, apologies already tumbling out of mouths that weren’t involved. Someone kneels to help him up. Someone else is already blotting the carpet like this is a wine spill at a wedding and not a perfectly timed intervention.
I don’t move.
I don’t look at Hartley being hustled away.
I look at Alejandro.
This wasn’t clumsy. It wasn’t random. The timing is too perfect, the chaos too contained. He didn’t just fall. He fell there. Then. Right as I was about to speak.
He didn’t need to touch me to stop me.
That’s the part that makes my blood go cold.
The manager barrels in, clipboard in hand, face tight with performative calm. Her voice cuts through the murmurs like a knife through silk.
“Apologies, ladies and gentlemen. Please,” she says brightly, already gesturing toward the double doors at the far end of the room. They’re opening wide, staff guiding guests with practiced efficiency. “Let’s move into the brunch hall. You all look very hungry.”
Laughter ripples, thin and polite.
The room obeys.
Hartley disappears through the doors, surrounded and protected, exactly where I didn’t want him to go. Someone just got a clean read on response time and crowd control. And Alejandro made sure of it.
Staff usher me toward the kitchen with the rest, momentum doing the work of force. I let it carry me because resisting would only draw attention, and attention is a luxury I can’t afford right now.
As I pass Alejandro, helping mop up the mess he created, he looks up at me.
His expression isn’t pain or regret. It’s calculation.
And in that instant, the question answers itself.
He didn’t just stop me.
He’s involved.
They don’t ask.
Security doesn’t argue. Management doesn’t debate. I’m redirected with firm hands and polite urgency, steered away from linen and champagne and money like I’m a stain that needs to be scrubbed out before it sets.
“Back of house,” someone says. “Please.”
I let them push me.
The double doors swing shut behind me, cutting off the noise of the brunch, the clink of glass, the low murmur of powerful men pretending they aren’t edible. The hallway is narrower here, colder, all concrete and stainless steel and utility lighting that doesn’t flatter anyone.
My pulse is still ticking to the rhythm of breaking glass.
The sound replays on a loop. The timing. The precision. The way Alejandro just looked at me when it happened.
The flip phone buzzes in my pocket once. I pull it out without stopping, screen shielded against my palm.
GRIM: Deleted files incoming.
Of course it’s now.
I close the phone and scan the corridor, already anticipating Alejandro’s footsteps behind me. The inevitable attempt at damage control. The calm voice. The reasonable explanation designed to slow me down just enough for him to get ahead of me again.
Well, I’m not giving him the chance. I need to see what this is before anyone can shape the narrative around it.
The walk-in is in the middle of the kitchen’s side wall, marked with a fading label and a dented handle. I grab it, slip inside, and pull the door shut behind me.
The cold hits instantly. Sharp and clean and absolute.
Metal shelves line the walls, stacked with produce, seafood, wrapped trays of things that once lived. The hum of the refrigeration unit is constant, steady, indifferent. The kind of sound that makes it easy to think.
I text Grim back with numb fingers.
SAINT: Send them.
The files load slowly, bars creeping across the screen like they’re enjoying this.
Two images appear.
Both black and white.
Both grainy. Low resolution. They’re security footage, not photographs. The kind of images that are never meant for anything except evidence or blackmail.
The first one settles into focus.
Alejandro.
He’s in the left corner of the frame, half-captured, as if the camera wasn’t meant to see him at all. The angle is wrong, tilted slightly, cutting off his face at the edge. You can see his posture, though. The line of his shoulders. The familiar way he stands when he thinks no one is watching.
The rest of the image is useless. Ornate carpet. Patterned. Expensive. In the opposite corner, the tip of another man’s shoe intrudes into frame. Polished. Dark. That’s it.
No faces. No context. Just placement.
The second image loads.
It’s worse.
Another black-and-white still, higher angle this time.
Rooftop security, judging by the perspective.
Someone is climbing into a helicopter. You can see a bent knee.
White pants. A dress shoe. The curved edge of the helicopter door.
On a nearby handrail in the foreground is a hand.
Someone else coming down to the helicopter maybe.
No faces.
No location markers.
Nothing that should matter.
I stare at the screen until my eyes start to ache.
Why these?
Why were these worth deleting?
They prove nothing. They don’t even tell a story. Anyone could look at them and shrug.
I zoom in. Out. Tilt the phone. Study shadow and grain like meaning might bleed out if I stare hard enough. I commit the images to memory, every useless detail, every absence.
Then I text Grim again.
SAINT: Anything else with these? Dates. Locations. Anything.
The response comes back fast this time.
GRIM: First image: September 7, 2023.
GRIM: Second: six months ago.
September 7.
Two years ago.
The night of the poisoning.
The night Alejandro became an exile.
The cold seems to sink deeper, pressing into my bones.
I exhale slowly, controlled, and look back at the first image. At the way he’s positioned. At the fact that he’s the only clearly identifiable person in the frame. The only one whose presence can’t be explained away as coincidence.
My frustration tightens into something sharper.
Why delete these?
Why risk exposure? Why scrub files that don’t incriminate, don’t threaten, don’t even clarify?
Unless the value isn’t in what they show.
Unless the value is in when they were taken.
Alejandro is the anchor in the one photo and I still don’t know what they mean yet.
I only know they mattered enough for him to erase.
That’s not paranoia. That’s priority.
I close the phone and slide it back into my pocket, the cold air biting at my skin. The hum of the cooler fills the silence, steady and unjudging.
I’m done waiting for explanations.
If Alejandro won’t tell me the truth, I’ll force it out of him myself.
And this time, I won’t give him the chance to step in my way.