Semua Bab Red: Claimed by the Keeper in the Tower: Bab 81 - Bab 90

REDThe art gallery bled money from every white wall. Turpentine and expensive perfume mixed in the cool air, making my nose itch. I hated these places. Too quiet. Too many cameras. Too many people pretending to give a shit about paint on canvas.But this was work.I'd been tracking her for ten minutes. She stood alone in front of some violent mess of red and black strokes, head tilted like the painting was whispering secrets. The way her brow creased told me she wasn't just looking. She was hunting for something, same as me.I knew the guards' rotation. I knew where every exit led. I knew Sebastián would be on his phone in exactly ninety seconds, distracted by his contact in Miami. That's all the time I needed.I moved through the gallery like I belonged there, like I gave a damn about the overpriced shit on the walls. Casual. Bored, even. Just another rich man's accessory killing time while he made his deals.I stopped in front of a landscape. Gray sky, dead field, nothing else. It

CRUZThe hotel suite held its breath. Twenty-three floors below, the city pulsed with life I couldn't hear through bulletproof glass. I stood at the window, staring at nothing, my reflection a ghost against the lights bleeding into streaks of gold and red. My hands had curled into fists without permission. The knuckles had gone bone white.Twenty minutes. Sebastián had been standing by that door for twenty goddamn minutes since we'd walked in from the gala. He knew the rules. When the mask cracked, when the carefully constructed facade of Enrique Cruz - philanthropist, businessman, reformed criminal - shattered into pieces, he waited. He always waited.I could feel the pressure building in my skull. A headache that started at the base of my spine and crawled upward, vertebra by vertebra, until my jaw ached from clenching."He sat across a courtroom from her." The words scraped out of my throat like gravel. "Sentenced her to my island like she was nothing. Like she was garbage he could

REDThe café on Rue de la Victoire smelled of burnt coffee and damp wool. Outside, rain slicked the cobblestones into mirrors that reflected the gray Parisian sky. Rosemary Jensen wrapped her hands around her cup, the porcelain warm against her chilled skin. Three tables away, a woman in a navy trench coat raised her newspaper slightly, their agreed-upon signal.Rosemary stood, leaving half a franc on the table, and walked toward the exit. The woman followed thirty seconds later, her heels clicking against the pavement. They turned left onto Rue Duphot, then right into a narrow alley that smelled of stale cigarettes and urine."You're late," the woman said, her voice sharp as broken glass. She pulled a packet of Gauloises from her pocket and lit one with a silver lighter."The Métro was crowded." Rosemary kept her hands in her pockets, her fingers brushing against the knife she kept there. "Do you have it?"The woman exhaled smoke through her nostrils. "I have something better." She g

RED'S POVParis glowed like a fucking jewel box outside our suite windows. I pressed my forehead against the cool glass, watching the lights blur and refocus. The city never slept, just like the voices in my head that wouldn't shut up about what I wanted. What I needed.Behind me, Cruz sat in that leather chair like he owned it. Hell, he probably did. The lamplight caught the sharp angles of his face while he pretended to read whatever book he'd picked up. War and Peace. Crime and Punishment. Some heavy shit that made him look intellectual instead of like the brutal cartel prince he actually was.The baby kicked. Hard. Right under my ribs like she was reminding me she existed, like I could forget. My hand went to my stomach automatically, feeling the swell that had transformed my body into something I barely recognized. Six months pregnant with Cruz Castillo's child. If someone had told me a year ago this would be my life, I would've laughed in their face before putting a bullet in th

The Parisian air was crisp, carrying the scent of rain and roasted chestnuts. Rosemary walked with a purpose that was not her usual measured stroll. This was not a walk for pleasure or for the sake of appearances. This was an execution. For three weeks, she had built this moment, piece by painstaking piece. She had mapped the surveillance patterns, noting the specific window in Sebastián's routine that opened on Thursday afternoons, a ten-minute gap when his attention was diverted by a scheduled delivery to the service entrance of the hotel. She had a contact waiting at a café near the Gare du Nord, a route planned through back streets and narrow alleys, a destination that was not freedom, but a step toward it.She was three streets from the hotel when she allowed herself a small, sharp breath of victory. The city was a blur of gray stone and moving bodies, a river she was navigating with practiced ease. She was calculating her next turn, the angle of the sidewalk, the flow of pedestr