CHAPTER 7: Lines of Influence

Albert's POV

---

I almost cancel the dinner twice before the first guest arrives.

The second time, my thumb is already over Matteo's contact when the elevator doors open behind me.

Too late now.

The private dining room stretches across the entire fortieth floor, all glass and candlelight, and carefully controlled privacy. Heavy curtains frame the skyline while my security team finishes sweeping the room an hour ahead of schedule. Staff signed a non-disclosure agreement before noon today, and all personal phones stay outside these walls.

Nothing leaves this table unless I allow it. Usually that's enough. Tonight my fingers find the whiskey glass anyway.

Tap.

Tap.

I stop them.

From forty floors up, Manhattan almost convinces you everything works. You can't see broken sidewalks from this height or people pretending they're fine.

Matteo steps beside me quietly and breaks the silence. "The car is three minutes out.”

I check my watch anyway, then I look down at it again thirty seconds later. Matteo notices, but says nothing. Wise to hold his tongue.

The guest list tonight is small by design, Senator Williams, David Chang, Elena Vasquez, three people who built empires by identifying weakness faster than everyone around them. Williams likes to think he sits at this table as an equal. He doesn't. He sits at this table because five years ago my father made a phone call that made a very inconvenient problem disappear from a committee vote, and men like Williams spend the rest of their careers pretending they don't remember who they owe.

Now, I am bringing Adeline Carter into the very center of this circle. I am not doing this because she belongs here, but because I need to know if she can survive it.

I don't like the thought.

"You are overthinking this," Matteo says from my shoulder.

"I don't overthink."

His eyebrow lifts at my response. I drain the whiskey and set the glass aside.

He passes his phone to me.

‘Unknown routing architecture detected again. Same proxy chain as before. Passive monitoring only so far.’

The message brings a cold realization. There is still no direct contact, and no further threats beyond the original text. Just observation.

The elevator opens.

Senator Williams exits first, confidence arriving before he does, gray suit, campaign smile, the kind of face people trust blindly until they realize that gaining their trust was the entire point. David Chang follows right behind him, already loosening his shirt cuffs while Elena Vasquez enters last, draped in black silk and diamonds sharp enough to count as weapons.

"Albert." Williams shakes my hand. "Your mystery woman seems to have captivated Manhattan."

"Temporary attention spans," I reply.

Elena studies me over her champagne flute. "You brought someone into your orbit. That alone makes it noteworthy."

The elevator dings again before I answer.

Williams stops talking. David looks up first and Elena's glass never reaches her lips.

Every conversation near the elevator stalls for half a beat.

Adeline steps out into the room. Wearing just black silk skimming her frame and those hazel eyes taking in every person at the table before she moves. Her fingers tighten once around her clutch before she releases the tension.

David notices immediately. Elena too. Williams smiles like he smells vulnerability. My hand tightens around my fork.

"Adeline Carter," I introduce as she reaches us. Her eyes flick to mine briefly.

"Senator Williams. David Chang. Elena Vasquez."

"Should I be intimidated?" she asks lightly.

David laughs first, genuine surprise behind it. Elena's mouth curves slightly. "Depends how attached you are to your self-esteem."

Adeline slides into the chair beside mine, close enough that her perfume reaches me over the scent of red wine. Subtle and clean, which makes it dangerous only because I notice it instantly.

The first course arrives with the sound of silver cutlery striking porcelain. We eat roasted lamb under the candlelight as the city's low hum filling the gaps between questions.

Then Williams turns toward her. "So." He folds his napkin neatly. "What exactly do you do, Miss Carter?"

Williams doesn't ask about her studies.

He asks whether she belongs here.

Adeline hears the subtext too, I see the recognition flicker across her face.

"I'm a graduate student," she says calmly. "Fashion business."

Williams hums. "Fashion." The word lands somewhere between mild amusement and dismissal. "And what contribution do you expect to make in such a... saturated industry?"

Under the table her fingers curl against her knee. "I want to build sustainable manufacturing systems that don't rely on exploitation to remain profitable."

Williams smiles the way politicians do before they dismantle someone publicly. "That's a very idealistic answer."

"And yet profitable brands are already doing it."

David leans forward now. Now he's interested.

Williams doesn't notice. "Can they do it at scale?”

"Patagonia scaled." Adeline doesn't blink. "Stella McCartney scaled. Consumers under thirty are willing to pay more for ethical sourcing if the branding and quality justify it."

David sets down his wine glass. "Labor costs destroy most startups before sustainability becomes profitable."

Adeline turns toward him immediately. "Only if they're trying to compete through volume instead of scarcity positioning."

Nobody reaches for a glass.

David keeps looking at her, then studies her properly now. "Go on."

And she does, confidently at first, then faster once she realizes nobody's interrupting. She covers supply chains, consumer psychology, luxury branding versus fast fashion, and environmental cost reduction through smaller production runs. She's nervous, I can tell from the way her water glass stays untouched.

But she knows this subject inside and out and believes every word. It's not a pitch, it is a vision, unpolished at the edges, and the table feels the difference.

Elena watches her the way venture capitalists watch founders seconds before deciding whether they're worth millions.

Williams tries another angle. "Younger generations always believe they'll rebuild systems they haven't fully participated in yet."

Adeline smiles politely. "Older generations usually say that right before younger generations do exactly that."

David coughs into his wine to hide a laugh and my mouth almost moves with it. Williams notices both reactions and recalculates but the room already shifted toward her.

I sit back slightly and let it happen. That's when I realize she's stopped looking at me for reassurance. Now she's engaged directly, challenging them back, holding eye contact, forgetting to be intimidated.

Dangerous evolution.

Elena finally speaks. "What would you do first if someone handed you fifty million dollars tomorrow?"

Adeline blinks once, taking a moment to think. "Pay my student loans.”

David laughs outright at the honesty.

She continues her thoughts. "After that? I'd focus on vertical manufacturing control, smaller distribution and transparent sourcing.”

Elena tilts her head slowly. "Interesting." Coming from her, that's equivalent to applause.

---

Dinner ends near midnight.

Williams leaves first, already checking polling numbers on his phone. David shakes Adeline's hand and tells her to email him if she ever builds the brand.

Elena lingers. Of course she does.

She watches Adeline disappear toward the elevator with Matteo arranging her coat, then she turns back to face me. "You like her." It is not a question.

"I find her interesting."

Elena looks genuinely disappointed in me. "You're too intelligent to insult both of us with that answer."

I say nothing in return.

She steps closer to me instead. "Do you know what the true difference is between attraction and danger?”

"Why don't you tell me?"

"Danger changes your decision-making."

I look back at the skyline.

Elena studies my face for another second before continuing. "You've checked your watch twelve times tonight. You hate inefficiency and yet you let dinner run an hour over because she was enjoying herself." A pause. "And you watched her more than anyone else in this room combined."

I stare out at the skyline.

"Careful, Albert."

"I always am."

"That's what worries me." Then she's gone.

---

Adeline waits beside the elevator when I reach the lobby, hair slightly loose now, and black silk softer somehow under the lower lights. She looks tired and exhilarated at the same time.

"You set me up," she says instantly.

"Excuse me?"

"That wasn't dinner. That was intellectual gladiator combat."

A laugh nearly escapes, an occupational hazard around her lately. "And yet you survived."

"Barely." She steps into the elevator beside me. "Your senator tried to politically assassinate me over appetizers."

"He does that to everyone."

"And the terrifying magazine woman looked straight into my soul."

"Also normal."

She laughs.

I look at the elevator doors instead.

The elevator doors open into the private garage. The moment we step out into the space, my instinct tells me something is wrong. There are two security men standing near the entrance, and one of them is speaking urgently into an earpiece. Matteo's posture straightens.

Adeline notices the shift beside me. "What happened?"

One of the guards approaches fast. "Sir, we had an issue."

The guard hands over a tablet displaying security footage from the parking level, which is timestamped twenty-three minutes ago. I run the numbers. There were two guards posted on that level, both of whom are good and experienced, and still someone managed to get close enough to stand in plain view of a camera without caring about the consequences. Whoever walked into my garage wanted to be seen.

That was the point.

The footage plays to show a man in a dark coat standing right beside Adeline's empty car pickup zone. He watches the elevators without moving, watching the doors, the footage skips and he disappears into thin air.

 Adeline goes motionless beside me.

The guard zooms in on the screen. The man's face stays hidden beneath the brim of a cap, but the moment before the footage cuts out entirely, he lifts something directly toward the camera lens.

A white envelope.

My name is written across the front.

Under it.

Adeline Carter.