The East Wing smelled of nothing. No dust, no flowers, no life—just the sterile, recirculated air of a high-end laboratory. Elena stood in the center of her suite, her bare feet pressing into the thick silk carpet, listening to the house breathe.
Hum. Click. Whir.
The estate was a living computer, and right now, its processors were screaming. Somewhere downstairs, Damian was likely scrubbing the gate's footage, but Elena knew he wouldn't find the handprint on the gatepost. She'd wiped it with the hem of her dress before the guards could turn their heads.
She moved to the vanity. The mirror reflected a woman who looked like a fragile socialite, but her eyes were calculating the sweep of the hidden lens tucked inside the air vent.
Every eleven seconds, the camera swiveled.
Elena waited for the beat. One. Two. Three. On the count of nine, she reached into the lining of her travel kit and pulled out a small, translucent patch—a digital looper. She flicked it toward the vent. It stuck with a microscopic thud. For the next five minutes, the security feed would show an empty room and a woman supposedly shedding her ruined dress.
She didn't waste a second.
She pulled the micro-chip from her glove. It was stained with a fleck of Marcus's dried blood. She didn't have a workstation, but she had the "hairpin" she'd bragged about—a modified sub-D connector hidden inside a vintage Cartier barrette.
She snapped her burner laptop open. The blue light bled into her retinas, cold and unforgiving.
Accessing...
Encryption: Level 5. Military Grade.
"Come on, Marcus," she whispered, her fingers dancing over the keys in a rhythmic, frantic blur. "Don't be a martyr now."
The progress bar crawled. 22%. 48%. The laptop's cooling fan began to whine, a low, dying groan that sounded like a siren in the oppressive silence of the room.
75%. 91%.
Access Granted.
A single file appeared, labeled with a string of coordinates and a date from ten years ago—the night Elena's father died. Her breath hitched. She clicked it.
It wasn't a bank statement. It was a recorded audio log.
"...doesn't matter if he suspects," a voice hissed through the speaker, distorted by static but unmistakably Silas Morton, Damian's eldest uncle. "The dosage is already in the scotch. By the time the heart stops, the empire will be ours. Damian is too young to lead. He'll be easy to prune."
Elena's blood turned to ice. Marcus hadn't been selling Damian's secrets to the Volkovs. He had been recording the family's conspiracy to murder Damian's father—and likely Damian himself. Marcus was the only shield Damian had left, and that shield had just been shattered.
She scrolled further down. There was a list of names. A 'Watch List.'
At the very top of that list, written in Marcus's shorthand, was her own name: Elena Moore. Status: Unknown. Threat Level: Critical.
Marcus knew who she was. Or at least, he knew she wasn't just a surrogate.
Suddenly, the red light on her looper flickered. The security system was resetting.
Warning: Remote Override Detected.
"Shit."
Elena slammed the laptop shut, but the electronic lock on her door had already disengaged with a heavy, metallic thunk.
She didn't have time to hide the laptop in the safe. She shoved the micro-chip back into her mouth, tucking it under her tongue, the sharp, metallic tang of copper and silicon hitting her throat. She threw the laptop under the bed and collapsed onto the silk sheets, pulling the duvet over her just as the door swung open.
Damian Morton didn't walk in; he invaded.
He was still in his rain-dampened shirt, the fabric clinging to his shoulders, his hair a mess of dark silk. He looked wired, his eyes scanning the room like a hawk looking for a rabbit.
"You're awake," he said. It wasn't a question.
Elena propped herself up on her elbows, her jaw tight to keep the chip from clicking against her teeth. "Hard to sleep when your house smells like a morgue," she muttered, her voice muffled.
Damian didn't answer. He walked straight to the vanity, his gaze fixing on the air vent. He reached up, his long fingers plucking the translucent looper from the grate. He turned it over in his hand, a slow, lethal smile spreading across his face.
"My IT team noticed a five-second delay in the East Wing feed," he said, stepping toward the bed. "They thought it was a glitch. I thought it was you."
He stopped at the edge of the bed, towering over her, his presence sucking the oxygen out of the room. He reached down, his hand wrapping around her ankle through the duvet, his grip like a shackle.
"You've been busy, Elena. First you predict a murder, then you blind my cameras."
He leaned over her, his face inches from hers. She could smell the sandalwood, the rain, and something sharper—the scent of a man who had finally caught his prey.
"What's in your mouth?" he growled, his thumb moving up to catch the corner of her lip.
Elena stared back, her eyes defiant, the chip sitting like a hot coal against her tongue.
"Open," Damian commanded, his voice dropping to a low, vibratory rumble that she felt in her very bones. "Before I decide I don't need you alive to get the truth."