Ava waited three days. Not because she was uncertain but because she knew Lucas would expect immediacy from someone like her.
She wasn't going to be someone like her.
On the third afternoon, she found the Ducati again.
It was parked at the edge of an underground lot beneath an upscale office tower downtown. Same clean black frame. Same mirrored finish. Same handprint-free gloss across the fuel tank. There were four other luxury vehicles spaced evenly nearby, all with custom plates, but only one had golden dust on the brake handle.
She stood three rows away. No jacket. No phone out. Just a disposable iced drink in one hand and an empty keychain looped around her index finger.
There were cameras overhead.
Not good ones. Just motion sensors and time-stamp captures. Cheap corporate compliance tech. She'd watched them long enough to know they refreshed every twelve seconds. A two-second blind spot just after each pan.
Lucas wouldn't rely on those. He'd rely on fear.
Ava didn't look at the bike as she moved.
Twelve seconds.
Step, step, pause.
Ten seconds.
She approached a grey sedan parked two spots down, crouched beside it, untied her shoe, retied it, slid something from her sleeve and onto her palm.
Six seconds.
A small, silver disc. Smooth. Thumb-sized. Magnetized.
Her design.
Simple. Quiet. Completely untraceable unless you were looking for it—and no one would be. Not in this world.
Four seconds.
She stood, rounded the back of the sedan casually, flicked her wrist once; fast and clean.
Click.
The disc landed under the Ducati's seat, just above the left rear coil.
One second.
She was gone.
Back into the shadows of the stairwell, sipping her watered-down drink as if she hadn't just tagged the most paranoid heir in the country.
She didn't need to follow the signal.
Not yet.
It wasn't about tracking him.
It was about something simpler.
Claiming the first move.
She stepped out of the stairwell, her drink finished, her pulse calm. The tag was already pinging soft coordinates back to her burner device. A brick of code stitched into a custom app that didn't exist on any network.
She slid the phone into her pocket. Her real plan wasn't digital.
It was psychological.
Angel Lin.
So perfect in public. So poised. So gentle when Lucas was watching.
And so reckless when he wasn't.
Ava remembered. Not just the affair — but the way she cheated. The way she'd sneak around just far enough to get caught, only to pull back and make it look like paranoia on Lucas's part.
It wasn't a relationship. It was a test. A sick, private game.
Locke never lasted long in one place. He was military, but off the books. Always in between deployments, always in borrowed suits. The kind of man who made girls feel dangerous just by walking into a room.
Angel liked to meet him in places with one thing in common:
Lucas was always nearby.
Ava took out her notebook from her bag. It looked like a sketchpad and part of it was but folded inside were timestamps, social calendars, and a printout of Angel's preferred stylist's client list.
Tonight, there was a private wine tasting at Aurum House, a rooftop lounge owned by one of Lucas's old classmates. Lucas would be there. His name was already on the guest list, checked in by his assistant.
Angel hadn't RSVP'd.
But Ava knew better.
Angel would be there too — just not as his date.
She would arrive late. Unescorted. Confident that Lucas would be distracted long enough for her to slip downstairs to the private booths — the ones that weren't logged on the public event roster.
Ava folded the notebook closed, pulled her hood over her head, and started walking.
She wasn't going there to stop Angel.
She was going there to let her hang herself with the same golden rope she thought she controlled.
And this time, Lucas would be close enough to watch the noose tighten.
All Ava had to do was tug.
Aurum House wasn't loud.
That was its power.
It whispered wealth from every marble surface and gold-tinted edge. No music blasted. No crowds swayed. It was a place where the elite came to speak in low voices, exchange secrets, and pretend they were too dignified to care about being seen.
Ava arrived thirty minutes after Lucas.
She used the back elevator—an old access shaft from the service level that bypassed the main entry. She'd scouted it last week, when no one had noticed the girl in the maintenance hoodie walking around with a clipboard.
Tonight, she wore black. No makeup. No jewelry. A disposable mask tucked under her chin, the kind people still wore out of habit. Her hair was pulled back in a loose knot—nothing striking. Nothing memorable.
She didn't need to stand out.
She needed to see.
From the edge of the rooftop patio, she had full view of the main lounge: men in crisp suits, women with practiced smiles, glasses of rare wine gleaming like liquid rubies under golden lighting.
Lucas stood near the glass balcony, back to the skyline. Alone.
Of course.
He never moved in packs.
He sipped his drink slowly, eyes scanning the crowd—not with boredom, but with the focused attention of someone who didn't trust anyone in the room. A woman approached him, touched his arm. He didn't smile. He never did. But he nodded politely, said something short, and dismissed her without ever raising his voice.
Still the same.
Still sharp. Still elegant. Still terrifyingly aware of the space around him.
Ava's gaze dropped to the floor plan in her mind. Below the rooftop: the mezzanine booths. Velvet-curtained alcoves meant for "private tastings." Translation: unlisted deals, unspoken affairs, and nothing good.
She glanced at her phone.
Angel's car had arrived eleven minutes ago. No record of entry. No public hello.
That fit.
The wine bar staff didn't greet mistresses. Not when the main guest list came from families with lawyers.
Ava didn't need to confirm.
But she did.
She slipped through a side corridor, past the service entrance and down a back stairwell. It was quieter here. Too quiet.
On the mezzanine, soft light spilled through thin curtains.
The second booth on the left.
Voices. Low. Intimate.
She didn't touch the curtain. She didn't need to.
She already knew.
Angel's laugh. Soft and breathy. That same practiced giggle she used on Lucas when she wanted him off-balance.
A male voice responded. Confident. Leaning in. Locke.
"If he catches us, what then?"
"He won't," Angel whispered. "Lucas only sees what he wants. You don't know him like I do."
A pause.
Fabric shifted. A sigh. A kiss.
Ava stepped back into the hallway and disappeared.
Not to interrupt.
To prepare.