A text from an unknown number appeared on Sydney's phone at precisely 6 PM.
Dinner. 7:30. The dining room. Formal.
It could only be from one person. The command was absolute, woven into the lack of a question mark. Sydney stared at the words, a flutter of something between dread and curiosity tightening in her stomach. In the week since she'd arrived, their interactions had been spectral—a glimpse of him leaving in the morning, the echo of a door closing at night, the lingering scent of his sandalwood in an empty room. This was a summoning.
She stood before her closet, her fingers brushing past the comfortable sweaters and jeans. Formal. With a sharp breath, she reached for the one thing she'd packed that fit the description: a simple, sleeveless sheath dress in deep emerald silk. She'd bought it for a gallery opening with her father, who had whistled and called her his "little jade Empress." It felt like armour now. She swept her hair up, applied a dash of crimson to her lips, and studied her reflection. The girl from the café with Liam was gone. In her place was someone sharper, older, playing a part.
At 7:30, she stepped into the penthouse's formal dining area, a room she'd only peered into before. A long table of polished black wood reflected the light from a single, dramatic chandelier of twisted crystal and iron. Settings for three were laid with intimidating precision—gleaming silver, bone-white china, crystal glasses that caught the light like diamonds.
Damien stood at the head of the table, pouring wine into a glass. He was in a suit of charcoal so dark it was nearly black, the cut impeccable, making his shoulders look impossibly broad. He looked up as she entered, and for a fractured second, his gaze froze on her. It was the same stark assessment from the kitchen, but now laced with something else—a flicker of surprise, quickly banked, that felt dangerously close to approval.
"You're on time," he said, his voice neutral.
"You said 7:30."
A ghost of something touched his mouth. Not a smile. An acknowledgment. "So I did." He gestured to the seat on his right. "Albert will be joining us."
As if on cue, the man himself appeared from the kitchen, carrying a silver tureen. Albert out of his driver's uniform was a revelation. He wore a well-tailored navy suit, but it couldn't conceal the sheer, bullish strength of him, the way he moved with a careful economy that spoke of training. He gave Sydney a polite, guarded nod. "Ms. Reed."
"Albert," she replied, taking her seat.
The dinner was a silent, exquisite torture. A first course of seared scallops appeared, followed by a filet mignon so tender it seemed to melt. The food was superlative. The conversation was not.
Damien and Albert spoke in a kind of professional shorthand, discussing security rotations, a VIP client from Macau, the delivery schedule for the casino's new vintage champagne. It was a performance, Sydney realized. She was being shown a glimpse of the machine—efficient, luxurious, impenetrable. She was also being shown her place: a spectator, well-dressed and silent.
She ate, answered direct questions with brief politeness, and watched Damien. He was a study in contained power. His hands were elegant but bore the faint calluses of something other than desk work. He listened to Albert with absolute focus, his grey eyes missing nothing. But occasionally, his gaze would drift to her, lingering on the line of her neck, the way her fingers curled around her wine glass. Each time, she felt it like a physical touch, a brand in the cool air.
During a lull as Albert explained a logistics issue, Damien's phone, which had been lying face-down on the table, vibrated with a low, insistent hum. He glanced at the screen, and the already minimal warmth in his face drained away. His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.
"Excuse me," he said, his voice flat. He rose, taking the phone, and walked not out of the room, but toward his study door in the west wing. He pushed it open and stepped inside, but in his haste, or perhaps due to the age of the heavy door, it didn't latch. It swung back, leaving an inch of open space.
A sliver of warm, dim light from the study cut into the dining room's darkness.
Albert continued talking about delivery manifests, but Sydney's entire being was focused on that inch of space. She could hear the low murmur of Damien's voice, tense and clipped.
"…under control. The assets are frozen, the paper trail is ash… No, there's no risk of it tracing back. I've contained it."
A pause. Sydney's fork hovered over her plate, her blood roaring in her ears.
"The Gabriel situation is contained." His voice dropped, but the acoustics of the empty hallway carried it with chilling clarity. "The daughter is secure. She's here. That was the arrangement. She's no longer a variable."
The Gabriel situation. Contained.
The daughter is secure.
She's no longer a variable.
The words were ice water in her veins. She wasn't a grieving ward. She was a situation. A variable that had been neutralized.
Albert had stopped speaking. She could feel his eyes on her. She forced herself to take a bite of food, but it tasted like sawdust. A moment later, the study door opened fully and Damien strode back to the table, slipping his phone into his pocket. His face was a smooth, unreadable mask again. If he noticed the door had been ajar, he gave no sign.
"Apologies," he said, resuming his seat. "Business."
"Everything secure, sir?" Albert asked, his tone carefully neutral.
"Everything is under control," Damien said, his eyes shifting to Sydney. They were fathomless, giving away nothing of the conversation she had just overheard. "Isn't it, Sydney?"
The challenge was subtle, layered. Did you hear? Do you understand? Are you going to behave?
She met his gaze, her own suddenly clear and cold. She took a slow sip of her wine, the crimson liquid like courage. "Perfectly," she said, her voice steady. "Everything seems very… contained."
Something flickered in the depths of his grey eyes. Interest? Warning? She couldn't tell. He gave a slow, single nod, and the rest of the meal passed in a blur of meaningless pleasantries that felt like a duel fought with butter knives.
When Albert finally took his leave and Damien retired to his wing with a terse "Goodnight," the heavy thunk of the locking door echoed through the silent penthouse. It was 8:05 PM.
Sydney moved on autopilot, clearing her plate to the kitchen. But the moment she was back in her room with the door locked, the calm facade shattered. Her hands shook as she pulled out her phone. She didn't call Liam. That bridge felt burned, fragile.
She called Priscille.
Her best friend answered on the second ring, the sound of a video game and crunching chips in the background. "Syd! To what do I owe the honor? How's life in the ivory tower?"
"Pris," Sydney said, her voice a tight whisper. She sank to the floor, her back against the bed. "Something is wrong. Really, really wrong."
The chips stopped crunching. The game audio muted. "Okay. Talk to me. Is it the Crypt Keeper? Did he try something?"
"No. It's not that. It's… I overheard him on the phone." She repeated the words, her voice trembling. "The Gabriel situation is contained. The daughter is secure. She's no longer a variable."
A long silence stretched on the other end of the line. "Well," Priscille said finally, her usual flippancy replaced by a hard, analytical tone. "That's not creepy at all. That's some seriously cold terminology, Syd. 'Contained' like a chemical spill. 'Secure' like a prisoner. 'Variable' like a math problem."
"What does it mean?" The question was a plea.
"It means your dad's death and you are part of an equation to him. And he thinks he's solved it." Priscille's keyboard started clacking, a rapid, urgent staccato. "This isn't just a weird grieving best friend request anymore. This is a situation. And you, my dear, are smack in the middle of it. We need data."
"We?"
"Please. You think I'm letting my bestie navigate a potential thriller plot alone? I have skills. Digital ones. You have access."
"To what?"
"To your dad's world. To that fancy gallery internship if you get it. To physical records. I can't hack a locked filing cabinet from here. But I can help you connect dots. Starting with those mystery men from your desert photo. You send me that picture. Now."
A wave of relief, tinged with fear, washed over Sydney. She wasn't alone. "Okay. Okay, I will."
"And Syd?" Priscille's voice was deadly serious. "Be careful. A man who talks about people like variables is a man who sees the world as a chessboard. Don't let him see you making your own moves."
After she hung up, Sydney took the desert photograph from its hiding place. In the cool glow of her phone screen, the four smiling young men looked back at her. Her vibrant father. A younger, softer Damien. And the two strangers. She snapped a clear picture of it, making sure the scrawled 'Outside Al Jafr, '08' was visible on the back, and sent it to Priscille.
The reply was almost immediate.
On it. Talk tomorrow. And Syd… lock your door.
Sydney did. Then she sat in the dark, watching the lights of the casino below, feeling less like a bird in a gilded cage and more like a mouse who had just seen the shadow of the cat. And had decided, for the first time, to study the shape of the claws.