CHAPTER 6
GAbrIEL
◆
I had seen Helena Duarte stand in front of riot police wearing a yellow raincoat and fury.
Nothing had prepared me for the black dress.
Mara brought three options to the penthouse because Helena’s apartment was under surveillance and because, according to Mara, a woman could not infiltrate the Palace Hotel opera gala dressed like she had recently assaulted a man with emergency equipment.
Helena chose the simplest dress.
Of course she did.
Black silk, narrow straps, a neckline that made language unreliable. The skirt followed her hips before falling to the floor. She wore her curls pinned loosely at the back of her head and red lipstick sharp enough to count as a weapon.
The red-glass key rested beneath the fabric at her sternum.
I stood by the windows in a tuxedo and understood why lesser men ruined countries.
Helena caught me looking. “Is something wrong?”
“Yes.”
Mara made a sound that might have been a cough.
Helena turned slowly in front of the mirror. “The dress?”
“The existence of other people.”
Her gaze met mine in the glass.
Mara put a velvet wrap around Helena’s shoulders. “I’ll wait downstairs while Mr. Salles remembers civilization.”
The elevator doors closed behind her.
Helena faced me. “You know this is an investigation, not a date.”
“I know.”
“You look unconvinced.”
“I’m deciding how many men I can remove from a ballroom before you call it interference.”
“All of them would be excessive.”
“Define excessive.”
“More than two.”
“Unworkable.”
Her smile came slowly.
I had spent two years watching it in photographs and ten hours learning how different it looked when I caused it.
That knowledge was becoming a problem.
I picked up the diamond bracelet Mara had left on the table. A Bastion transmitter hid beneath the clasp.
“May I?”
Helena held out her wrist.
The gesture should have been ordinary. It wasn’t.
I fastened the bracelet. My thumb brushed the inside of her wrist, where her pulse accelerated against my skin.
Her breathing changed.
“Transmitter?” she asked.
“And panic button.”
“I don’t panic.”
“You improvise with fire extinguishers.”
“Effective panic.”
“If you press the center stone twice, every Bastion operative in the hotel converges on you.”
“How many?”
“Enough.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You didn’t answer.”
“Because you would object.”
“That has never stopped you.”
“It has begun to interest me.”
I let her wrist go, though every part of me objected.
The gala occupied the Palace Hotel’s old opera hall, a monument to money pretending it had culture. Crystal chandeliers burned above six hundred guests. Politicians, judges, bankers, diplomats, and the people who made them believe their sins were tax deductible.
Dario Velasco’s portrait appeared on every program, smiling beneath the phrase ART BUILDS TRUST.
Helena read it and murmured, “That feels desperate.”
“His bank lost four billion in deposits last month.”
“Art builds liquidity.”
A waiter offered champagne. Helena took one glass, then handed it to me without drinking.
“You don’t like champagne?”
“I like having my full judgment around powerful men.”
“I’m wounded.”
“You’re the reason.”
I kept the glass.
We moved through the room as a couple because it was the cleanest cover. Helena’s hand rested on my arm. Each brush of her fingertips against my sleeve made the assignment less clean.
Senator Tomás Lacerda intercepted us near the orchestra pit.
He was handsome in the polished, reassuring way campaign photographers loved. Forty-one, reformist hero, old university friend of Helena’s, permanent smile.
I disliked him before he opened his mouth.
“Helena.” He kissed the air beside her cheek. “You disappeared from the court before I could rescue you.”
“She didn’t need rescuing,” I said.
Tomás looked at me as if noticing furniture. “Salles.”
“Senator.”
Helena’s fingers tightened around my arm. A warning or encouragement. With her, the difference was dangerous.
Tomás lowered his voice. “My office can challenge the injunction. I also have a parliamentary privilege route for your evidence.”
“You don’t know what evidence I have,” Helena said.
“Then give me the original files and let my counsel secure them.”
The request was too fast.
Helena smiled pleasantly. “I don’t bring originals to parties.”
“Still careful.”
“Still alive.”
His gaze drifted to the bracelet at her wrist, then to my hand near the small of her back.
“Are you two working together?”
“We’re discussing opera,” I said.
“You hate opera.”
“I’ve changed.”
Helena looked up at me. “In the last twelve hours?”
“Profoundly.”
Tomás laughed. I did not.
The orchestra began tuning. Dario Velasco appeared at the front of the hall in white dinner jacket and black bow tie, his silver-streaked hair swept back, his smile bright enough to survive insolvency.
He greeted a minister, embraced an actor, and never looked directly at Helena.
“He knows we came,” she said.
“He sent the invitation.”
“He expected me alone.”
“He will adjust.”
“You think the world adjusts around you.”
“It usually does.”
“Honest and unbearable.”
“You prefer both to polite and false.”
Her eyes held mine for a second too long.
Tomás extended a hand. “Dance with me, Lena. There’s someone near the north box you need to see.”
The nickname touched a nerve I didn’t own.
Helena noticed.
“Professional,” she murmured to me.
“I am being professional.”
“You’re holding my waist like the senator owes you money.”
“He probably does.”
She turned to Tomás. “One dance.”
Every instinct in my body said no.
I released her.
That was the difference between protection and a cage. The distinction had always sounded academic until Helena walked away on another man’s arm.
Tomás led her onto the marble floor. He spoke near her ear while they moved through the crowd. Helena’s face stayed composed, but her eyes tracked the north box.
I tracked Tomás’s hand.
Mara appeared beside me. “If you break the senator’s wrist, it will complicate the cover.”
“He is touching her too low.”
“He is touching her waist.”
“Exactly.”
“You are thirty-eight years old.”
“I fail to see the relevance.”
Mara followed my gaze. “She chose the dance.”
“I know.”
That was the only reason Tomás retained the hand.
Helena’s eyes met mine over his shoulder. She lifted one eyebrow, amused.
Then a woman in the north box raised a folded opera program. Three red lines marked the cover.
Pension Fund Director Inês Prado. One of the officials who approved Banco Capital’s purchase.
Helena had the contact.
Tomás turned her, blocking my line of sight.
The lights dimmed for the performance.
When they brightened again, the north box was empty.
So was Dario Velasco.
Helena returned to me. “Inês wants to meet tomorrow. Tomás arranged it.”
“What did it cost?”
“A dance.”
“Too much.”
“You were jealous.”
“No.”
She smiled. “Gabriel.”
“I was assessing a threat.”
“His hand?”
“His intentions.”
“And what are yours?”
The question removed the room around us.
I stepped closer, close enough to smell the orange blossom at her throat. “You know.”
“I know you’ve watched me for two years.”
“I know the first article you published under your own name. I know you cried in the alley after your father’s appeal was denied, then walked into a live interview and made Vale’s spokesman stutter. I know I have wanted to touch you since a rainstorm outside Saint Agnes Prison.”
Her breath caught.
I lowered my voice. “And I know wanting you is the least strategic decision I have made in my adult life.”
“Is that supposed to flatter me?”
“It’s supposed to warn you.”
A waiter approached with a silver tray. One black envelope sat in the center.
“For Ms. Duarte.”
Helena took it.
Inside was a room key and a note in Dario’s handwriting.
SERVICE BOX C. FIVE MINUTES. ALONE.
Below it, another line had been written in block capitals.
COME ALONE OR THE WOMAN BESIDE YOU DIES.
Mara stood ten feet away.
Helena’s face went cold.
I took the note before she could hide it.
“No.”
“He’s watching.”
“Let him.”
“If I don’t go, he may target Mara.”
“He already targeted you.”
“This could be the only chance to hear what he knows.”
“You are not walking into a sealed room alone.”
Her eyes flashed. “You don’t decide that.”
“I decide what I will allow under my protection.”
“And there it is.” She pulled her hand from my arm. “The cage with better tailoring.”
Regret came too late.
I held out the room key. “Then decide.”
She stared at my palm.
“If you go,” I said, “I stay close enough to reach you. If you tell me to wait outside, I wait outside. If you tell me to leave, I will hate it, but I leave.”
“Would you?”
“No.” I let the truth show. “But I would make you choose me again instead of pretending I owned the first choice.”
The anger in her face softened at the edges.
She took the key.
“Wait outside,” she said.
I nodded once.
As she walked toward the service corridor, Tomás appeared beside the orchestra aisle. He watched her go, then touched the obsidian ring on his right hand.
A tiny gold crest marked its face.
An eleven inside a broken circle.