Chapter 7
AURORA
The blood is the first thing I understand.
It’s spreading beneath Dominic in a dark, uneven pool that reaches the edge of his desk chair, and the color is wrong for the dim office lighting.
It’s too bright, too red, and too real. Dominic is on the floor behind his desk, he isn’t moving, and Adrian Bugrov is standing three feet from the body with Viktor beside him and a gun he’s returning to his jacket.
For one disorienting second, I try to rearrange the scene into something that makes sense, like a fall or a medical emergency or an accident involving the desk or the laptop that’s been pulled apart on the surface.
I want this to be anything other than what it obviously is, and then Adrian looks directly at me and removes every alternative.
He doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t look guilty, surprised, or panicked. He looks at me with steady focus, like he’s already three steps ahead of everyone else in the room. The absence of shock on his face makes it impossible to pretend this is anything but an assassination.
Adrian killed Dominic.
I’m standing in the doorway of a room where Adrian Bugrov just murdered my employer. The same hands that held my face in the service corridor, the same mouth that was on mine an hour ago, and the same body I pulled closer when I should have pushed away belong to a killer.
I want to move backward, toward the corridor, the exit, and anywhere that isn’t here, but I can’t.
I’m locked in place by the same instinct that kept me still when he kissed me, except this time the stillness isn’t a choice.
I’m frozen because what I’m looking at hasn’t caught up to what I already know.
Viktor moves first. He shifts his weight forward and positions himself slightly between Adrian and me, and the look he gives me has no warmth in it, no reassurance, no ambiguity.
I’m a problem. I’ve witnessed something I was never supposed to see, and Viktor is telling me with his posture that the next thirty seconds will determine how this gets resolved.
He moves his right hand toward his hip. Without seeing, I know exactly what’s there and exactly what he’s considering.
Rather than freeing me to run, the knowledge roots me to the floor harder than the blood did.
Adrian stops him with one word. “Viktor.”
Viktor holds his position but doesn’t advance. He looks at Adrian, and something passes between them that I can’t read but can feel. Adrian wins the silent argument. Viktor takes a half step back and rests against the wall, still watching me but no longer reaching for his gun.
Adrian turns to face me fully. “How much did you hear?”
My voice comes out steadier than I expect.
The surprise of it almost makes me lose the thread of what I’m saying.
“ I heard you talking about recordings, Dominic selling information to someone named Karpov, and the…shot.” I swallow against the tightness in my throat.
“I came down the corridor because I saw you and Viktor heading toward the back office, and I wanted to check that everything was okay. The service corridor door wasn’t fully closed. ”
He frowns at me. “You heard the shot and came toward it instead of away.”
“I didn’t know it was a shot until Viktor opened the door.
” That’s partially true. The suppressed crack could have been a bottle breaking or a heavy box dropping.
I told myself that on the walk down the corridor, and I believed it for exactly the time it took to reach the door but hesitate to turn the knob.
Viktor took the choice from me a few seconds later.
Adrian watches me silently for a moment, as though he’s running the same kind of assessment he ran when I answered his questions about the private room layout on his first night at Echelon.
He’s measuring what I know, what I’ll do with it, and whether the answer to either question is something with which he can live.
“Dominic was recording private conversations in the VIP suites and selling the audio to a man named Damir Karpov.” Adrian speaks plainly, without hedging or softening.
“Karpov runs a rival organization. The recordings contained details of my meetings, my security protocols, and the names of people who trusted that their conversations in this building were private. Dominic sold that trust for eighty thousand dollars to get a watch he couldn’t afford on his club salary. ”
I look past him to Dominic on the floor.
He hired me. He yelled at me about champagne stains and called me at seven in the morning about noise complaints and paid me well enough that I tolerated all of it.
Now he’s dead, and Adrian is standing between us explaining the reasons with the same composure he uses to order whiskey.
“So you killed him.” I sound neutral rather than judgmental. I’m not even sure how I feel about all of this right now.
“Yes.”
I wait for him to justify it, explain it, or soften it with context.
He doesn’t. He stands there as the words filter through my mind, and the refusal to apologize or elaborate is either the most honest thing I’ve ever heard or the most dangerous.
With him, it’s probably both. “Are you threatening me?”
“No.” Adrian’s answer comes instantly, sounding solid and confident. “If I intended to kill you, this conversation would already be over, and Viktor wouldn’t be standing against a wall. You’d be on the floor next to Dominic.”
The sentence is terrifying because I believe every word of it. He isn’t posturing or trying to frighten me into compliance. He’s stating a fact, the same way he stated facts about room configurations and sound insulation the first night we met. The blunt honesty is what makes it worse.
I swallow a lump in my throat. “What do you want from me?”
“The situation you’re in is worse than what you’re looking at.
” He takes a step toward me, and I hold my ground even though every instinct I have is screaming at me to move.
“Karpov has copies of those recordings. Anyone connected to this club is now a target from multiple directions, and that includes you.”
I instinctively shake my head. “I’m a hostess.
I don’t know anything about recordings, Karpov, or whatever Dominic was doing behind my back.
I didn’t even know for sure illegal dealings happened here.
” I mean, I suspected it. I’d have to be an idiot not to, with jammers available in private meeting rooms, but I never asked, and it was never confirmed. I was paid to live with that.
“Karpov doesn’t know that. Neither will the police once Dominic’s disappearance triggers an investigation.
Your name is on every employee record, every shift log, and every VIP service report this club has produced in six years.
You managed the floor, the private rooms, and the client relationships.
If anyone comes looking for what Dominic knew, you’re the first person they’ll want to talk to. ”
That sounds less than ideal. My head is starting to spin, which makes it oddly easier to deal with the moment. “What am I supposed to tell them?”
“Nothing, because you won’t be here to answer their questions.” He holds my gaze. “I’m not threatening you. That’s just what has to happen next.”
I want to argue. I want to tell him I’ve survived six years in a building full of dangerous men without his help, and I can survive whatever comes after Dominic.
I don’t need another man deciding what’s safe for me and what isn’t, because I’ve heard that speech before, and it always ends with me losing ground I never agreed to give up.
I want to say all of that, and I don’t, because Eric’s name just lit up my phone.
My phone vibrates in my hand. I look down at the screen, and Eric’s name is glowing against the dark display.
The timing chills me. Eric, calling at two in the morning, while I’m standing in a room with a dead body and Adrian Bugrov, who just explained why my life is about to get very complicated. I don’t answer. I stare at the name until the vibration stops, and then I look up at Adrian.
He noticed the phone. His expression doesn’t change, but something sharpens behind his eyes. “Who is that?”
“Eric Hayes.” I hold up the phone so he can see the screen, then lower it. “My ex-boyfriend, the homicide detective. You already know who he is.”
Adrian nods once. “I do.”
“He’s going to be assigned to this case.” The realization arrives as I’m saying it, and the force of it almost buckles my knees. Eric works homicide, and Dominic is dead. Once the disappearance is reported and the investigation begins, Eric will volunteer because it connects to me and to Echelon.
He won’t be able to resist it. He’ll frame every visit, every interview request, and every late-night phone call as professional obligation, and nobody in the department will question him because they never questioned him before. “He’s going to use this to get close to me again.”
“Yes, he will.” Adrian’s voice is level. “That’s one of several reasons you can’t go home tonight.”
I stiffen, and the woozy feeling starts to dissipate. “You don’t get to tell me where I can go.”
“I’m not telling you anything. I’m explaining what happens next.
” He crosses his arms and leans against the desk.
“Eric will use your employee status to justify contact. Karpov will use it to decide you’re worth collecting.
If you go home tonight, one of them will reach you by the end of the week.
Either way, you’ll be at the mercy of a man who wants to control you, or a man who will kill you after a painful interrogation, whether or not you have useful information. ”
I shake my head again, but my neck feels wobbly and less certain this time, like a bobblehead. “I don’t know anything worth collecting.”