I woke beside Adrien Moretti with his hand on my hip and a camera aimed at the bed.
I checked his pulse before I checked my blouse.
By sunrise, the man who had staged us would be sitting in Adrien’s chair.
But at that moment, all I knew was that something was terribly wrong.
The first thing I understood was that Adrien Moretti was breathing.
The second was that somebody wanted the room to tell a lie.
I opened my eyes beneath a heavy gray duvet that smelled faintly of cedar and unfamiliar laundry soap. My mouth tasted metallic. My skull felt packed with wet sand, and rain tapped steadily against the tall bedroom windows.
Adrien lay beside me.
Unconscious.
His white dress shirt had been opened three buttons. His left hand rested against the curve of my hip with an intimacy neither of us had chosen.
Across the bedroom, a compact digital camera sat on a tripod.
A red light burned above the lens.
Watching.
For three seconds, maybe four, I forgot how to breathe.
Then nine years of emergency medical training pushed through the panic.
Pulse first.
I pressed two fingers against Adrien’s neck.
Steady.
Slower than I liked, but there.
“Mister Moretti.”
Nothing.
I tried his first name.
“Adrien.”
His eyelids did not move.
Only then did I look down at myself.
Black catering slacks.
Blouse still buttoned.
Shoes gone.
Service jacket missing.
Apron missing.
My hair, which had been pinned into a knot when I arrived for work at six the previous evening, hung loose around my shoulders.
Four black hairpins sat in a perfect row on the nightstand.
That detail frightened me more than if they had been scattered across the floor.
Care took time.
Whoever had put us there had not been panicking.
They had arranged us.
I pushed the duvet away.
The entire bedroom tilted violently.
I grabbed the mattress and waited.
Sedated.
Not drunk.
I had consumed no alcohol.
I remembered carrying a silver tray into Adrien’s study.
Coffee.
A plate he had barely touched.
I remembered him asking why I was the only server working his charity dinner who looked directly into his eyes.
I had answered before common sense could stop me.
“I spent almost ten years in ambulances. You learn pretty quickly that the frightening people aren’t always the ones everyone warns you about.”
One corner of his mouth had moved.
“Who are they, then?”
“The ones who don’t know they’re dangerous.”
That had actually made Adrien Moretti laugh.
Not loudly.
Just once.
A low, surprised sound.
Then his expression had changed.
He had looked over my shoulder.
Not at me.
Behind me.
At a bookshelf.
There had been a tiny red light between two leather-bound books.
Adrien had risen so quickly his chair scraped backward.
He had reached beneath his desk.
My knees had folded.
He had lunged toward me.
And then he had collapsed.
That was the last thing I remembered.
Now we were in his bed.
I swung my legs over the edge.
Cold hardwood pressed beneath my bare feet.
One shoe lay beside the dresser.
My other shoe had been positioned beside Adrien’s side of the bed.
Placed.
Again.
Placed.
I stood.
The bedroom rolled sideways.
I caught the carved bedpost and forced myself to remain upright.
Then I smelled it.
Something faintly sweet beneath the cedar.
Chemical.
Wrong.
The climate-control panel beside the bedroom door flashed amber.
FAULT.
I did not know what might have been circulating through the ventilation system, and I had no intention of remaining in that room long enough to discover it.
I crossed to the windows.
They were locked.
I found the release and pushed one open.
Cold November air rushed inside.
I inhaled deeply.
Behind me, Adrien made a rough sound.
I turned.
His eyebrows tightened.
“Adrien?”
His fingers moved.
I hurried back.
His eyes opened slowly.
Dark.
Unfocused.
Then sharp.
Shockingly sharp.
He grabbed my wrist.
I almost reacted on instinct.
“Easy.”
His gaze jumped from my face to my clothes to the camera.
The grip around my wrist loosened.
“What happened?”
His voice was barely audible.
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
He tried to sit.
I pushed one hand against his shoulder.
“Not yet.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Are you ordering me around?”
“You’re barely conscious.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
“No. I’m preventing you from hitting the floor.”
Adrien glanced down.
He saw his shirt.
Then his hand moved instinctively toward the mattress where I had been lying.
He looked back at me.
“I didn’t—”
“No.”
I answered before he could finish.
“I know.”
His jaw tightened.
“How?”
“Because I remember you collapsing before I did.”
His eyes went toward the camera again.
I followed his gaze.
“We’ve been staged.”
Adrien remained silent for several seconds.
His face changed.
The grogginess disappeared beneath something colder.
Something I imagined many men had seen moments before realizing they had underestimated him.
“Don’t touch the camera,” he said.
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Good.”
“Someone was careful.”
Adrien looked at the hairpins.
Then the shoes.
Then me.
His eyes stopped on my face.
“How much do you remember?”
“Your study. Coffee. You noticed a camera. I collapsed.”
“You didn’t drink the coffee.”
It was not a question.
“No.”
“Neither did I.”
My stomach tightened.
“Then it wasn’t the coffee.”
Adrien looked toward the flashing ventilation panel.
“No.”
A heavy footstep sounded beyond the bedroom door.
I froze.
Another step.
Then another.
The handle turned.
Adrien moved faster than a man in his condition should have been capable of moving.
His hand disappeared beneath the mattress.
When it emerged, he was holding a handgun.
I stared.
“You keep that under your pillow?”
“Mattress.”
“That somehow doesn’t make me feel better.”
His mouth almost moved.
The door opened.
A broad-shouldered man in a charcoal suit appeared.
He had silver beginning at his temples, pale blue eyes, and the calm expression of someone who believed panic was beneath him.
I recognized him immediately.
Julian Voss.
Adrien’s head of security.
I had seen him throughout the evening.
He had controlled access to the private rooms.
He had checked every catering employee.
He had personally reviewed our badges.
And now he was staring at us in bed.
For exactly half a second, surprise crossed his face.
Then concern replaced it.
Too quickly.
“Mister Moretti.”
Julian stepped forward.
Adrien raised the gun.
“Stop.”
Julian stopped.
His gaze moved to me.
“What happened?”
“You tell me,” Adrien said.
“I heard the ventilation alarm.”
“Who has access to this floor?”
“Your personal security detail.”
“Names.”
“Adrien—”
“Names.”
Julian’s jaw tightened.
“Me. Theo. Marcus. Daniel.”
“Where are they?”
“Checking the property.”
I looked at Adrien.
He had not lowered the weapon.
Julian finally noticed the tripod.
His eyebrows lifted.
“What the hell is that?”
The reaction was convincing.
Almost.
But there was a problem.
When Julian entered, he had looked at Adrien first.
Then me.
Then the bed.
Only afterward had he looked at the camera.
If I walked into my employer’s bedroom and found a camera pointing directly at the mattress, it would have been the first thing I saw.
Unless I already knew it was there.
I said nothing.
Not yet.
Adrien seemed to reach the same conclusion.
“Get Theo,” he said.
Julian hesitated.
“Now.”
Julian backed toward the door.
“Of course.”
He left.
Adrien waited until the footsteps disappeared.
Then he looked at me.
“You saw it.”
“Yeah.”
“What?”
“He didn’t notice the camera.”
Adrien gave a slow nod.
“Julian notices everything.”
“You trust him?”
“I did.”
Something in his voice made my skin prickle.
A man like Adrien Moretti probably did not use the word trust casually.
I crossed the room and closed the door.
“There’s another problem.”
“What?”
“If someone recorded us, why leave the camera?”
Adrien stared at it.
“They wouldn’t.”
“Exactly.”
The camera was not the evidence.
It was bait.
Maybe it had been left for us to discover.
Maybe whoever had staged the scene wanted Adrien to destroy it.
Or wanted us to believe the recording was on that device when the real copy was already somewhere else.
Adrien swung his feet to the floor.
This time I did not stop him.
He stood.
His knees almost buckled.
I caught his arm.
For one strange moment, we were pressed together.
His breathing went still.
Mine did too.
His face was inches from mine.
Dark eyes.
A thin scar near his jaw.
Faint cedar cologne beneath the chemical smell.
“Careful,” I whispered.
Adrien looked down at my hand gripping his forearm.
“Most people don’t grab me.”
“Most people aren’t trying to keep you from cracking your skull open.”
“You do realize who you’re talking to.”
“Currently? A patient.”
Something changed in his expression.
Then the bedroom door opened again.
A younger man entered.
About thirty.
Lean.
Black suit.
Dark hair.
His eyes swept across the room and immediately locked onto the camera.
Unlike Julian.
“Theo,” Adrien said.
Theo Russo stopped.
“What happened?”
“Lock the floor.”
Theo looked at him.
“Already did.”
Adrien’s eyebrows shifted slightly.
“Why?”
“Your private security log vanished.”
Silence.
I felt a chill colder than the November air.
Adrien straightened.
“What do you mean, vanished?”
“The electronic record for this floor between 10:42 p.m. and 1:16 a.m. is gone. Not corrupted. Removed.”
Theo looked toward me.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“One camera survived.”
Adrien became perfectly still.
“Where?”
“Service corridor.”
Theo pulled a phone from his pocket.
“I haven’t watched the whole file yet.”
He held the screen toward us.
The video showed a hallway outside the kitchen.
Timestamp: 11:07 p.m.
I appeared first.
Unconscious.
A man carried me.
My head rested against his shoulder.
My dark hair was still pinned up.
Another man followed.
He was carrying Adrien.
The camera angle caught only shoes and partial profiles.
Theo advanced the recording.
At 11:09, the first man returned alone.
He stopped beneath the camera.
Looked directly at it.
Then reached upward.
The video ended.
My stomach dropped.
I knew the face.
Adrien knew it too.
And behind us, from somewhere downstairs, a man’s voice began giving orders as if the Moretti estate already belonged to him.
Julian Voss.
Adrien stared at the frozen frame.
Then he said five words that changed everything.
“He thinks I’m still unconscious.”