Chapter 9
AURORA
Iwake up at eleven with the sun slicing through blinds I don’t recognize, in a bed that isn’t mine, wearing clothes I didn’t choose.
My first coherent thought is that Dominic is dead.
My second is that I slept with his killer not even an hour before his death.
My third is that I locked myself in this room last night and Adrian didn’t try the door, which is either reassurance or strategy, and I’m too tired to decide which.
I lie still for several minutes and listen. The penthouse is quiet except for the low hum of an air conditioning system that sounds expensive and a faint murmur from down the hall that could be a phone call or a television. The situation assembles itself piece by piece.
I’m on the thirty-second floor of a building I can’t leave without a security code I don’t have yet. My boss is dead, and my ex-boyfriend is investigating the death. A man named Karpov wants information I don’t have and will kill me when he’s done if he gets hold of me.
I get up, shower, and brush my teeth with a toothbrush still in its packaging that someone left on the bathroom counter.
I sort through my bag, wondering who packed it for me.
I’m all set for a track meet, but that’s about it.
They weirdly included six pairs of underwear but only one bra.
I slip on something more suited to working out than facing a bratva boss, which seems far more credible now than when Marisol mentioned it, and walk down the hall.
Adrian is in the study off the living room, sitting behind a desk with a laptop and two phones. He’s wearing a different shirt than last night but the same unreadable expression, and he looks like he hasn’t slept at all. He stands when I appear in the doorway.
“There’s a coffee machine if you want coffee, espresso, or a cappuccino. There’s food in the refrigerator.”
“I’m not hungry.” I lean against the door frame, mirroring his posture from last night. “You said we had a lot to discuss.”
He nods and gestures to the chair across from his desk, so I enter the room and sit. He doesn’t immediately. He closes the laptop, sets both phones face down, and then takes his chair. The deliberateness of each action tells me whatever he’s about to say required preparation.
“Karpov has recordings that include you.” He delivers it flat. “Your client conversations, your introductions, and your reservation handling. Dominic was recording those rooms for months. There are certain things in there that aren’t…strictly legal.”
The meaning hits a second later. “My conversations with clients.”
“Dominic captured every confidence they shared, every request they made, and every introduction you facilitated. Even worse, Karpov has fragments of the archive.”
I can’t move as I struggle to rearrange everything I understood about the last several months of my career.
Every private conversation I had with a client in those rooms, every confidence I received, every favor I arranged, and every discreet introduction I brokered between people who trusted that the walls were private was a charade.
None of it was private. Dominic was recording me the same way he was recording Adrian, and I never suspected it.
I trusted the rooms because everyone else did too.
I had no idea who Dominic really was, or the dangerous game he was playing, and I walked right into the crossfire because of misplaced trust.
Dominic captured months of my conversations, and some of the most damning tidbits go through my mind.
Mr. Hadley, the mayor’s aide, told me about his daughter’s rehab while I arranged a private birthday dinner for his wife, who didn’t know.
The Venezuelan diplomat who asked me to hold an envelope for three hours and never explained what was inside.
Every client who leaned across a table and told me something they’d never tell their wives, their partners, or their attorneys trusted me with the parts of their lives they couldn’t show in daylight, and I trusted the rooms to keep those conversations safe.
Dominic recorded all of it, and now a man I’ve never met owns those conversations. “Does this Karpov have copies?”
“He probably has complete conversations of the older exchanges. Grigor recovered the primary archive but found out an hour ago that Karpov was in the process of downloading files, as he did every three days, when Dominic was killed. He didn’t get the full conversations for the past three days, but he likely got enough fragments that his IT people can get something from them.
We don’t know exactly which conversations he has, but he has enough to identify you as someone with access to sensitive client information. ”
“So I’m not just a witness to a murder. I’m a target because my boss secretly recorded me doing my job.”
“Yes, all of them.”
I look past Adrian toward the windows, thinking about the significance of the last three days.
I immediately recall fucking him in the private room.
Did Karpov get that? All of it, just pieces, or nothing?
I wish I could believe he got nothing, but I have to prepare for the possibility that he got at least enough to recognize who we are and what we were doing. “Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because you deserve to know what you’re facing, and the decisions you make from here should be based on full information.”
I shake my head. “That’s not what I mean. Why are you protecting me, bringing me here, and telling me all this?”
“Because I created the situation you’re in.”
The answer is unsatisfying and doesn’t come anywhere near addressing what happened between us before Dominic died. We both know it. He doesn’t expand on it, and I don’t push, because I’m not ready for that conversation.
“I need to call Marisol.”
He slides a phone across the desk. It’s new, still shiny, with no case, stickers, or history.
“That’s a secure line. Viktor set it up this morning.
Don’t use your personal phone for anything until further notice.
” He hesitates. “The ingoing and outgoing calls are logged for security purposes, but your conversations won’t be recorded. ”
I nod, slightly reassured about that. A moment later, I take the phone and go back to the guest room. My fingers tremble as I dial the number, glad it’s one of the few I’ve memorized.
Marisol answers on the third ring, sounding suspicious. “Who is this?”
“It’s me. I have a new phone.”
“Aurora.” Her voice goes from cautious to sharp instantly. “Where the hell are you? I’ve been trying to reach you since last night. Your phone goes straight to voicemail, you’re not at your apartment, and Echelon’s phones are all disconnected.”
“I know. I’m safe, and I need you to listen before you react.”
She exhales harshly. “That is the worst possible opening to a phone call.”
“Dominic is dead, but you can’t tell anyone that.
” I say it plainly because Marisol doesn’t respond well to softened information.
“The situation at the club was worse than anyone knew. He was involved in things that put people at risk, and now I’m under Adrian’s protection because the wrong people could come looking for me.
The cops are already investigating the disappearance, and Eric has volunteered for the assignment. ”
The silence on the line lasts four seconds, which is an eternity from Marisol. “Under his protection, as in…you’re living with him?”
That’s the part she focuses on rather than Eric or Dominic? I’m touched that she’s worried about me even in the face of more shocking news, but I wish she could be a bit more oblivious sometimes. “I’m staying at a property he owns. It’s temporary, and it’s necessary.”
That suspicious note returns, but not because she doesn’t recognize the number this time. “Is it necessary because you have to be there, or because part of you wants to be?”
I expected the question, but I still don’t have a clean answer.
“Both. I’m being honest about that. Adrian has been direct with me, protective without talking down to me, and more careful with my feelings than Eric ever was.
I’m keeping my distance deliberately because I don’t want to confuse gratitude with desire. ”
“What about him being apparently involved in whatever got Dominic killed?” She lowers her voice. “Did he kill Dominic?”
I don’t directly answer that. “I’m aware of who he is, Mari.”
“Are you? Yesterday, you were a nightclub hostess, and today, you’re hiding in a billionaire’s apartment while your ex-boyfriend investigates your boss’s death, which I’m guessing was at the hands of said billionaire with rumored bratva ties. That’s a lot of life changes for one day.”
She’s right, and I hate it. “I know how it sounds.”
“It sounds like you’re in over your head, and I’m trying to figure out whether the water is warm because you’re safe or because you’re drowning slowly.
” She pauses. “Don’t confuse relief with trust. I know you well enough to hear the difference in your voice, and right now, you sound relieved.
Don’t convince yourself this is something more. ”
“That’s fair.” I sit on the bed and press my free hand against my knee.
Her tone changes, becoming brisker. “Tell me what you need, mija. Anything.”
I’m not surprised by the offer. “I need practical help. The bag someone packed for me was mostly sweats, one bra, and nothing I’d actually wear in public. I need more clothes, my laptop, and the blue folder from my desk drawer. Can you go to my apartment and grab them?”
“Of course I can.” No hesitation or questions about why. Marisol shifts from emotional interrogation to practicalities without a gap because that’s who she is. “When do you need it?”
“As soon as possible. I’ll arrange a pick-up with Adrian’s people.”