I knew his name the way people knew the names of storms.
Shipping.
Casinos.
Ports.
Security companies.
And, according to years of headlines and rumors, something much darker underneath.
At 9:17, I escaped into the library.
Just sixty seconds.
One minute without anyone evaluating my clothes, my tray, my body, or my usefulness.
I leaned against the oak door and closed my eyes.
“You breathe like someone who’s been holding it all night.”
I froze.
Damian Vescari was sitting in a leather chair beside the fireplace, half hidden in shadow.
“I’m sorry. I thought it was empty.”
“It wasn’t.”
“I’ll leave.”
“You don’t have to.”
I hesitated.
He closed the folder resting on his knee.
“You’ve been moving for three hours.”
“How would you know?”
“I notice movement.”
His eyes flicked toward the door.
“You notice exits.”
My shoulders tightened.
“So do you.”
“That wasn’t a criticism.”
“Most people call it anxiety.”
“Most people have never needed exits.”
Something inside me shifted.
Not trust.
Recognition.
Then the library door slammed open.
A security officer staggered inside, clutching his side, his shirt dark and wet.
Damian was standing before the man finished falling.
“Boss.”
The guard grabbed the doorframe.
“Castellano’s people are inside the perimeter.”
Damian’s face went completely still.
“How many?”
“At least sixteen.”
The man struggled for breath.
“Someone turned part of the floor team.”
Then the crack of gunfire rolled through the walls of the house, distant and then not distant at all.
Guests screamed somewhere beyond the library door.
Glass shattered.
I stopped breathing.
The wounded guard looked at Damian and forced out one final warning.
“They didn’t come for you alone.”
He swallowed hard.
“They came to erase everyone in this house.”
PART 2 — Into the Dark
For a moment, nothing in the library moved except the fire, snapping quietly in the grate as if none of this concerned it.
Then Damian moved, and the room changed shape around him.
He crossed to the injured guard, caught him under the arms before he collapsed, and lowered him into the leather chair he’d been sitting in a minute earlier. His hands, when they came away from the man’s side, were red.
