I looked at him. "You've researched him."
"I research everyone you're assigned to."
I didn't say anything to that, because there was a version of that sentence that meant something I was not going to stand in this dim little room above a Navigli wine bar and address directly.
"I'll be fine," I said.
"You always say that."
"And I'm always right."
He gave me the look. That kind of deep look that makes me feel uncomfortable. I picked up my jacket from the back of my chair, tucked the now-swept dossier under my arm, and headed for the door.
"Ava." His voice caught me at the doorway. I stopped but didn't turn around. "For what it's worth. Five years is worth it. Just… come back from this one."
I didn't answer and I just walked out.
IT'S the gala day and it was exactly as unbearable as every rich man's gala usually is. It was held in one of those historic Milan venues that existed purely to make regular people feel like they had stumbled into a museum. Everything here was made of gold, including the floor. I had been standing for four hours.
My cover was simple. I was an event staff member wearing a black uniform, my hair pulled back tight with a tray of champagne glasses in my hand that I had been carrying around the room with for long enough that I had memorised the layout down to which corners had the best sightlines and which columns had blind spots. Reconnaissance, as Callum had said. First stage. I should just watch.
Remy was in my earpiece but he was mostly quiet. He only spoke when he had something useful to say, which was one of his better qualities.
'Board members are clustered near the east corridor,' he said. 'Legal team just moved to the private anteroom. You've got a window.'
I adjusted my tray and moved, keeping my steps unhurried. The crowd was thick but navigable. I was good at navigating crowds. I was good at being the person nobody looked at twice, because I could be invisible as fuck.
The contract was real. I could see it from across the room. A physical bound document was laid on the table in the private anteroom where the legal team had gathered. 1.2 billion dollars on paper. Hm.
I didn't need to get close to it. I just needed to confirm where it was, who had access, and which of the men in that room were the ones I would eventually need to move around. I was doing exactly that, holding my position near the doorway, my eyes moving to see, when it happened.
Someone suddenly raised their voice behind me, and even though I was perfect, I was still human, so my body reacted before my brain caught up, and I flinched, turning too fast.
The tray tilted and the single full glass of red wine on the corner of the tray flew up, turning slightly in the air and landing devastatingly on the document lying on the table.
Every single soul turned towards the clustered contract in disbelief and horror.
I stood there with my empty tray and felt the specific cold that comes not from temperature but from having made a catastrophic, irreversible, very public mistake.
'Ava.' Remy's voice in my ear was very low. 'Walk away quietly. Now!'
I should have apologised. I know that. I know that the correct and rational response was to set down the tray, apologise professionally, and let the event staff's crisis management process handle what came next. But then I felt it. I have not seen it. Felt it.
I felt a shift in the room, like something was entering it…and I could feel that everyone in the room felt it too by their shudders. Everybody turned to face the entrance and by instinct, I turned slowly.
"What's going on here?" A loud, thunderous voice sounded.
It was his bodyguards. He just stood there at the entrance.
Caius Vale in person was nothing like the photograph and completely identical to it at the same time. The photograph had captured his face accurately enough. What it had failed to capture was the quality of his calmness. The way he occupied space. He wasn't moving or speaking or wasn't doing anything at all except standing in the doorway looking at the ruined contract on the table, and yet every single cell of my instinct was like it's on fire.
His eyes moved from the contract. To me. TO ME!
He had dark hazel eyes that were completely unreadable. The kind of gaze that didn't ask questions because it had already decided it would find the answers on its own. A whole me? Couldn't read its own expression. This was…
'RUN!'
Every single part of me that had kept me alive this long shouted in my head. I set the tray down on the nearest surface, turned, and walked. I wasn't walking fast yet though, because it might cause more trouble for me and more guards might come and I might just not be able to do more tonight. So I just settled for walking and blending into the crowd. I found my way to the corridor even though the sign said, 'Staff only.'
I didn't care. I moved through it quickly now, calculating the fastest route to the service exit. I was almost there but my stupid sleeve caught on a door handle as I passed. The fabric pulled back.
I felt the air on my wrist before I registered what had happened.
I looked down.
The crescent-flame birthmark on the inside of my left wrist was fully exposed. The shape of it was like a flame curving into itself, like something mid-transformation. I had covered it every single day for years. Every single day without exception because it was the one thing about me that I could not change.
I yanked my sleeve up and flew down the window into the night.
CAIUS
She was already gone.
That was the first thing that registered in my brain…not the ruined contract, not Matteo's voice somewhere behind me, saying something I wasn't even hearing. No. What registered in my head first was that feeling of absence, because she was here in a second, and then, she had disappeared.
I looked at the doorway she passed through and left. I looked at the contract and the way red had already beautified or ruined the page. 1.2 billion dollars. This took me three months of negotiations. These kinds of deals don't just come anyhow because it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the people involved, not me. Just like that, it was ruined by a glass of wine held by a woman who had just disappeared.