MasukLucien's POVI see the ambulance pulling away while my car is still four blocks away, as seen on my street camera feed. I watch the ambulance feed until it goes out of my screen's range.Then I put the phone face down on the seat and look at the city moving past the window, Marcus's voice ringing in my mind: Kane is down, gunshot, right side, we need the ambulance now. I’m out the door right when the driver parks. I go up the stairs without looking at the landing. Marcus gave me the full picture in the car: clinical, precise, exactly what I needed; two attackers detained, one of mine with a graze on his forearm and Kane with a gunshot wound to the right side, possible lung involvement, critical but stable when the ambulance left.I knock on the door at the top, and it opens immediately.She's been waiting on the other side of it. She's been standing at the door.She looks at me, and my eyes linger on her. She's unhurt as she said on the call, but seeing it makes me relax a bit. She'
Zolandria's POVRaven's grip on my arm, her nails through my sleeve, her breathing beside me, is the only thing I'm fully aware of.Lucien is still on the line, but neither one of us speaks. The silence on the other side of the door makes my hand tremble slightly. It feels like whoever is behind the door is waiting for us to make any move, then we’re done for. Then from outside the building, there’s a fast, close sound of a vehicle stopping hard on the street below. Then suddenly, doors bursting open, movement and voices sound up through the windows. Kane.The footsteps outside Raven's door shift, as if whoever it is was calculating their next move. Then the stairwell erupts all at once. Shouting, footsteps, chaos of people moving fast in a confined space. Something hits the wall, then there’s a crash that shakes the door in its frame.Raven makes a sound that isn't quite a scream.I pull her away from the door, back into the kitchen, and away from the line of anything that could c
Zolandria's POVI lie awake the whole night thinking about how to go to Raven’s without Lucien’s men following me around. They will stop me and Lucien might throw a fit. I lie in the dark room, flipping the building management portal, the suppression test schedule and the automated notifications I’ve been seeing come through the system for months.I know this building. I've been inside for long enough that I know which exits are used and which aren't, which corridors are covered and which have gaps, which door at the back of the ground floor leads to the service alley that connects to the street rather than the main entrance where Marcus rotates.I've never been planning to use any of that.“Come home when you can.” I turn over, and close my eyes.The morning comes quickly, and I dress and head to the office. I make his coffee and place it on his desk, go back to my station and open my task list and begin.The building management portal has been of my administration process since th
Zolandria's POVDre and Marcus are everywhere I go.Not obtrusively, they're good at their jobs, Marcus is always at the door, and the second one, Dre, is always near the stairwell. Both of them keep rotating, appearing, and disappearing, with the efficiency of people who have been trained to be visible enough to deter and invisible enough not to crowd. I notice them anyway because I feel them on my tail with any move I make. One at the coffee station when I go for my second cup, and Dre appears at the end of the corridor before I’ve even taken three steps from my desk. Then, later, when I go to the bathroom, Marcus repositions to the hallway outside. I've been watched since the day I arrived here, but this feels different, more suffocating. It feels like the walls are closing in on me. During the afternoon, I go back home and head for Ida's kitchen at lunch. She's not here; I forgot she goes to her sister's on Tuesdays, but the kitchen is unlocked and warm, and so I make tea and
Lucien's POVThe black car is gone by morning.Not moved, just gone because there were no plates logged leaving, no camera catching it pulling out, just absent from the spot it occupied for eleven hours like it was never there. Which is worse than if it had stayed.A car that disappears cleanly means someone with discipline pulled it back deliberately, which could only mean one thing: they’ve seen what they wanted. By eight a.m, I hear the click of her heels on the marble floor, then she enters my office, places my coffee on my desk, and vanishes before I even look up. Minutes later, Kane enters with the overnight intelligence and an expression I’m conversant with."The car," I say."Gone at three forty-seven am," he confirms. "Clean exit, we didn't catch it on any of the perimeter cameras leaving. They knew where the gaps were.""Which means they've been studying our coverage.""For a while, yes." He sits and opens the folder. "The photograph from the Whitmore dinner — we traced i
Zolandria's POVThree days later, and everything is different now. More men at the checkpoint, security posts, lobby, and the executive floor with different faces on rotation that I haven't seen before.The world knows, or enough of it does, but why is that a big deal? They already know I'm the daughter of Azaeres, so what makes this different then?I sit at my desk, do my job, and pretend the elevated protocol doesn't feel like the walls are closing in on me.Lucien is in back-to-back meetings all morning. I manage his schedule, screen his calls, draft correspondence, and take minutes of the meetings I am allowed to join. At eleven, Kane almost passes my desk, but he slows slightly as he reaches me and sets a coffee on the corner of my desk without comment.I look at it, and look at him, then, he's already moving away."Kane," I say. He stops. Turns."Thank you," I say. "For managing everything while we were away."He looks at me for a moment, and a warm expression creeps up on his f



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