Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Archer led Tatum out of the closet. He wanted her to know she was safe and that he was there with her, because as soon as she saw the level of destruction, she was going to be devastated.
"Holy shit!" she exclaimed as they entered the bedroom.
Archer had rushed through it earlier trying to reach Tatum as quickly as possible, but now he took a moment to study it properly and knew immediately that the destruction had been done with intent.
The bed was the first thing that caught his eye, not because it was central but because it had been destroyed.
The duvet and sheets had been ripped away and tossed aside, the mattress slashed open in long, brutal cuts that exposed foam and stuffing like a wound left deliberately uncovered.
Whoever had done this hadn't been searching in a hurry. They'd taken their time.
Everything else bore the same careless violence.
Drawers yanked free of the dresser, the contents overturned.
Underwear strewn across the floor, tangled and trampled.
Books knocked from shelves, their spines cracked, pages splayed open where they'd landed.
The bedside lamp lay on its side, bulb shattered, glass crunching softly underfoot as Archer moved farther in.
This wasn't a burglary. It was a message.
He was aware of Tatum beside him. She stopped just inside the doorway, shoulders stiff, breath shallow. Archer didn't look at her directly; he'd learned long ago that giving space in moments like this mattered, but he tracked her in his peripheral vision all the same.
She took one step forward. Then another.
Her gaze locked on the bed, and Archer saw the moment it hit her. Not fear exactly, she'd already burned through that, but the quiet, disoriented shock of seeing something private violated. Something of hers torn apart by someone who had wanted her to know exactly what they were capable of.
"This…" Her voice faltered. She cleared her throat. "This is extreme."
He nodded once, even though she hadn't asked him a question.
Her hands curled into fists at her sides. She crossed the room slowly and stopped at the edge of the bed. For a moment, she just stood there, staring at the ruined mattress, at the slashes that had gone too deep to be anything but malicious.
Archer watched her swallow hard.
He could tell at a glance they hadn't taken anything of value.
Jewelry still glinted on the dresser. Electronics sat untouched.
This wasn't about theft. It was about exposure.
Control. Letting her know someone had been here.
Letting her imagine what else they could have done.
Her bedroom should have been a refuge. Instead, it looked like a battlefield stripped after the fighting was done.
Something tightened in his chest. Cold and precise.
Not explosive. Useful. The kind of anger that sharpened focus rather than clouding it.
He prided himself on neutrality. His job was to run the Society, not to become emotionally invested in its members.
But this required a response, and not a warm one.
Tatum was a board member. What had been done here was calculated and cruel, and it demanded a cold, calculated answer.
The kind Archer was very good at providing.
"This wasn't random," he said evenly. "This is a message. They want you to know they've been here. They want you to be afraid."
She nodded, a small jerky movement, like she already knew that and hated it.
Archer scanned the room again, committing every detail to memory, but his attention kept returning to Tatum, to the way she stood stiffly, as if she believed that if she relaxed even a fraction, she might shatter.
Whoever had done this hadn't just torn apart a room. They'd tried to break the person who lived in it. And as Archer watched her standing there, surrounded by the wreckage, one thing became very clear.
They'd underestimated her.
And in doing so, they'd made a serious mistake.
He touched her arm. "I think you should put together an overnight bag. We'll take you to the Society's head office. There are apartments there for board member use, and I've already asked that one be prepared for you."
"I should stay and clean up," Tatum murmured.
"I've arranged for people to do that. You cannot be here alone until we understand exactly what is going on."
Tatum turned and looked at him directly. "We?"
"You're in danger. As a board member, you have more privileges than regular members. I can—"
"As a board member, I know you're not responsible for my safety outside of Society premises," she said. "I can't ask for special treatment."
Archer did his best not to snap a command back at her.
She'd just called him out for trying to help her, and what made it worse was that she was correct.
He let a beat pass. "You're right. However, in circumstances like these, I have some latitude.
I'm simply suggesting you stay at the Society as a convenience. You know you'll be safe there."
He kept his voice cool and his expression neutral, but some part of him wanted to tell her to stop being stubborn. Everything about this screamed danger. She needed to be somewhere secure, and he needed her there now.
"As for having this place dealt with, that was an afterthought. “I have a forensics team coming to go over everything properly. Unless you'd prefer to involve the police…" He let his voice trail off and waited.
She narrowed her eyes at him, then shook her head. "No police." A beat passed, and her shoulders dropped. "And I'll take you up on the offer of somewhere to stay. The rest, the cleaning and forensics, I think…"
Ryker appeared in the doorway. "Archer?"
Archer gave Tatum a brief nod and followed Ryker out into the hallway, down toward the living area. "What is it?"
"This is going to sound unusual, but we think the intruder came in through the sliding glass doors on the balcony."
Archer looked at his head of security. Then he turned to Rush, who was crouched at the base of the balcony doors, examining the frame.
"Are you certain?" Archer asked.
Rush nodded. "He came in this way. The front door hasn't been touched."
"I can confirm the hallway cameras didn't pick up anything," Ryker added, "and they weren't tampered with.
Someone got off on the wrong floor around the time Ms. Wellington heard the first thump and reached out.
Cameras show her clearly. A Mrs. Robinivich from the floor above.
She was walking her dog. Apparently, she gets off on the wrong floor regularly. "
Archer walked over to the balcony doors. Twenty floors up. It took nerve to enter an apartment from a balcony at this height. Real nerve, or training. Probably both.
"He came down from the roof?"
"That would be my guess," Rush said, getting to his feet. "Most likely scenario. I'll go up and check."
Archer said nothing, but his mind was already moving. That narrowed the field considerably. Not many people could manage that kind of entry, not cleanly, not without leaving a trace. Whatever Tatum Wellington had gotten herself into, it was bigger than she knew.
"Rush, send me photographs of the roof if you find anything. Have the forensics team go over the whole apartment."
Rush nodded and headed for the door.
"Ryker, check for any other break-ins in this building recently, just in case."
"Thinking he may have done a dry run on a lower floor?"
"It's possible. Also, pull the street surveillance going back a few weeks. I want to know if anyone has been watching the building or following Tatum."
"I'll get the tech team on it."
Archer turned at the sound of footsteps.
Tatum's pale face turned ashen when she rounded the corner and saw the living room.
He followed the trail of her gaze. It looked as though a hurricane had passed through and spared nothing.
Couch cushions had been slashed and overturned, stuffing spilling out in ugly clumps across the floor.
The coffee table lay on its side, one leg snapped clean off, glass shattered into a glittering scatter that caught the light.
Lamps were down, frames ripped from the walls, their contents discarded without interest. Bookshelves had been stripped bare, the books thrown aside like debris, some torn, some stomped on.
Nothing had been taken.
Everything had been violated.
Archer stayed where he was and watched Tatum absorb it. He saw the moment her breath hitched, the way her shoulders drew inward as if bracing against a blow that had already landed. She took two steps into the room and stopped, gaze moving across the damage in sharp, disbelieving sweeps.
"They destroyed everything," she said quietly.
Archer said. "They wanted you to see that."
Her jaw tightened, and she nodded once, as if confirming something to herself. She didn't touch anything. Just stood there, hands clenched, gaze fixed on the ruined couch.
"I need a minute," she said. Then she turned and disappeared back down the hall.
Archer didn't follow. He used the time to take in the room properly.
Angles, destruction patterns, what had been broken versus what had been ignored.
This was still controlled. Focused. Whoever had done this hadn't panicked.
They'd moved with purpose and without haste.
That told him more than the destruction itself.
When Tatum returned, she looked like a different version of herself.
The ball gown was gone, replaced by jeans and a dark, fitted top. Her hair was pulled back, her face scrubbed clean. An overnight bag was slung over one shoulder, and she clutched her laptop against her chest like something she wasn't willing to leave behind, regardless of what happened next.
She stopped in front of him. "I'll go with you. To the Society apartment."
Something inside him eased, just slightly, in a way he didn't examine too closely. He nodded once. "Good."
She moved toward the door without another look back at the room. Archer watched her go. There was something in the set of her shoulders, something deliberate and undefeated, that caught his attention for a half-second longer than it should have.
He turned to Ryker before she reached the hallway.
"Have everything replaced," he said quietly. "All of it. Furniture, rugs, lamps, the mattress. Everything. Make it like this never happened."
Ryker's brows lifted slightly. "Do we charge it to the Society?"
"No." The word came out with more certainty than he'd intended. "To me. Personally."
It was outside the rules. Rules Archer had lived by longer than most people had been in this business.
But there was something so wholly calculated about what had been done here, something so deliberately cruel, that it had gotten under his skin in a way he hadn't anticipated.
He was going to find out who was responsible.
That was simply a fact. And when he did, he was going to enjoy it.
Ryker studied him for a half-second, then nodded. "Understood."
Archer followed Tatum out, leaving the wreckage behind.