The 60th floor of the De La Vega Tower was a tomb of glass and cold steel, suspended high above the crawling, rhythmic pulse of Los Angeles. Inside, the air was filtered, chilled, and oppressive in its silence, broken only by the deliberate, rhythmic scritch of a fountain pen across thick, cream-colored parchment.
Luciano Solis De La Vega sat in his high-backed leather chair, his suit jacket discarded over a sofa. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, revealing forearms that served as a map of his life: a jagged topography of old scars and new, coiled tension. He wasn't looking at the sprawling city.
He was looking at his phone. More specifically, he was staring at a notification that refused to arrive: a transaction alert for the Black Card. Not knowing his Paloma was, at that very moment, teaching someone a lesson he would have thoroughly approved of.
His thumb tapped once against the armrest.
Then again.
