Chapter 18: Watched By The Devil's Brother

HENDRIX

If Erdem was watching me more closely, I needed to watch him back.

The idea had formed during Mara's tea.

The estate was full of cameras.

I knew which cameras covered the main corridors, which ones overlapped, and which sections had blind spots created by old architecture.

What I did not know was what Erdem said when he believed no one was listening.

I needed to know who came to his office, what names were spoken there, whether the raid had revealed an actual leak and whether the Red Ledger was ever discussed outside the vault.

I needed information.

I reached my room and closed the door behind me.

No one stopped me but that did not mean I was alone.

A guard stood in the corridor outside, another was posted farther down near the stairwell.

I lowered my eyes and sat on the edge of the bed. Then I began to work.

The red thread came first.

Then a metal which came from the clasp of an old laundry tag I had found beneath the bed two nights earlier. It had taken patience to loosen the small piece without leaving a mark. I had kept it tucked behind the wooden edge of the mattress.

A piece of thread and a sliver of metal.

Two things no one would consider dangerous but together, they might buy me forty-seven seconds.

I had timed the camera cycle earlier from the corridor mirror.

Forty-seven seconds between the shift of the lens and the reset of the internal feed, not enough for a careless person.

But enough for me.

I sat with my back to the camera and worked the metal through the red thread.

My mind remained elsewhere.

I still had no proof that the soldier in the warehouse had been the only person from my past who could recognize me.

The old name sat beneath every thought.

Ash.

I had built Hendrix Vale carefully.

A history full of half-truths and convenient damage.

But the name Ash belonged to another life, one with blood beneath its fingernails and orders whispered through locked doors. That life was not supposed to have followed me here.

If Erdem discovered it, I would lose the advantage of being underestimated.

I could not let that happen.

I tucked the red thread back around my wrist and stood.

The guard outside shifted.

I waited until the footsteps moved away, then opened the door.

The guard looked toward me.

"I need water," I said.

He glanced at the glass on the table inside my room.

I gave him a small, uncertain smile.

"I spilled it."

He looked past me, clearly considering whether the request was worth reporting. Then he stepped aside.

I walked toward the service corridor.

Not the kitchen.

The narrow passage behind the west stairwell.

I moved slowly enough to appear harmless and quickly enough not to invite questions. At the corner, I paused beside a decorative wall panel and pretended to adjust my sleeve.

The camera above the archway turned toward me.

I lowered my head. The lens moved away.

Now.

I pressed the metal loop against the lower seam of the camera housing and caught the red thread around the bracket beneath it.

The metal made contact, the lens jerked.

A tiny light blinked once, then went dark.

Forty-seven seconds, I counted silently.

One. Two. Three.

I stepped through the archway.

The servant passage was narrower than the public corridors, with exposed stone along one wall and old pipes running beneath the ceiling. It smelled of dust, detergent, and the faint dampness of a building that had been repaired too many times without ever being properly restored.

I knew the passage led toward the office wing but what I did not know was whether anyone would be waiting.

I reached the first turn.

The main hallway beyond was empty.

A maid's cart stood against the wall, abandoned beside a stack of folded linens.

I moved past it and entered the shadow between two pillars.

The camera feed would return soon.

I removed the listening device from inside my sleeve.

It was no larger than a fingernail, black enough to disappear against the wood paneling.

The device was old but old did not mean useless.

I had tested it against the water pipes in my room. The metal carried sound better than the walls did, and Erdem's office shared the same structural line.

The best place to plant it was not on the office door. That would be too obvious.

I reached the panel beside the office entrance and slid the device beneath the edge of the molding.

It clicked into place.

I pulled the red thread free from the camera behind me. The lens twitched.

I stepped backward into the servant passage and the camera light flickered.

I turned toward the side corridor.

Forty-five.

The lens reset.

Forty-six. Forty-seven.

I was gone.

I continued walking without changing my pace.

The servant passage emptied into a narrow stairwell that led toward the lower floors. I stopped there and listened.

Nothing, no footsteps, no voices, no alarm.

I leaned my shoulder against the wall and let myself breathe. It was a small victory.

Too small to celebrate but it mattered.

Erdem's office was the center of his power. The vault was below it. The ledger was somewhere inside the layers of that power, waiting behind locks and secrets and the arrogance of a man who believed no one could reach him.

Now I had placed an ear beside it.

A sound moved above me.

I looked up.

Silas stood at the top of the stairwell.

For one terrible second, neither of us moved.

He wore a dark jacket over an open shirt, his expression relaxed enough to appear careless. But his eyes were not careless, they were fixed on my hand.

My pulse struck hard.

"Damn."

Silas had seen me.

I lowered my hand slowly.

"Sir."

His mouth curved. "Hendrix."

I waited for him to call for the guards but he did not.

Silas descended one step.

"What are you doing down here?"

I let my gaze flick toward the pipes and then back to him.

"I got lost."

"In your own corridor?"

"I haven't been here before."

"That's interesting." He took another step down. "You look like someone who knows exactly where he is."

I gave him a small, uncertain smile.

"I'm not sure of what you mean."

He reached the bottom of the stairs.

I kept my back against the wall, leaving enough space between us to make the scene appear ordinary if someone happened to pass.

Silas looked at my hands again.

Then at my face.

"Did you find what you were looking for?"

The question was quiet.

I felt my heartbeat in my throat.

"I wasn't looking for anything."

He studied me.

I could see the same hunger in his attention that I had noticed the first night he visited my glass room. Silas wanted to be trusted, but not because he valued trust. He wanted the advantage of being the person someone chose to tell things to.

I let my expression soften.

"Are you going to tell Erdem I'm lost?"

He smiled.

"No."

That answer disturbed me more than an accusation would have.

"Why not?"

"Because I'm curious."

"So is Erdem."

"Erdem wants to own every answer." Silas leaned closer. "I only want to know what you'll do with it."

I forced myself not to glance toward the corridor where the listening device was hidden.

Silas noticed too much but not as much as Erdem.

"I don't know what you mean."

"Of course you don't."

He reached past me, not touching my body, and placed his fingers against the wall beside the panel.

My muscles locked.

His eyes did not leave mine. Then he tapped the panel once.

The sound was soft, almost playful.

"Some walls are thinner than they look," he said. "You should be more careful with what you carry."

I looked down as if I had forgotten it was there.

"It's just metal."

"Nothing is just anything here." Silas stepped away from the wall. "I could call the guards," he said.

"Yes."

"I could tell Erdem you were in a restricted passage with something hidden in your hand."

"Yes."

"I could even tell him you planted something near his office, but I won't."

My pulse kicked and my face went pale.

Silas smiled at the reaction.

He knew.

He had seen the device.

He came close enough that I could smell the whiskey on his breath, faint beneath the sharper scent of winter air.

"Erdem doesn't like people reaching into the things he thinks belong to him."

I kept my face still.

"Is that why you’re helping me?"

"I'm not helping you, I'm letting you continue."

"What do you want in exchange?" I asked.

He smiled without warmth.

"I'll tell you when I know."

That was not an answer, it was a promise.

He looked toward the corridor.

Footsteps sounded somewhere above us.

Silas stepped back.

"Go to your room."

I slipped the metal into my sleeve.

Silas moved toward the stairwell.

Before he climbed, he looked back at me.

"The next time you make a move," he said, "make sure you know who is watching."

Then he disappeared up the stairs.

I remained in the passage for three seconds.

Then I moved.

The guard near my room was still at his post when I returned. He looked at me with mild suspicion, but I gave him the same soft expression I had perfected since the auction.

"I found the bathroom," I said.

He did not laugh. Neither did I.

Inside my room, I closed the door and leaned against it.

My heart was beating too hard.

Not because Silas had caught me but because he had let me go.

That was not mercy.

It was ownership of a different kind.

Now the device near Erdem's office was not only my secret.

It was Silas's secret too, and secrets shared with Silas did not stay secrets.

They became debts.