Chapter 6

Chloe's POV

The Obsidian Estate looked like something that had grown out of the cliff face in the dark. Dark stone, bulletproof glass, three surveillance cameras on each side of the iron gate.

As the car rolled through the entrance, I logged everything I could: two men in the guardhouse, roughly two hundred meters from the gate to the main entrance, streetlamps evenly spaced, a gradual curve in the middle stretch, no cover on the inside of the bend.

The car stopped. The door opened. Sea air came in carrying salt and damp.

I got out and stood on the stone path at the entrance, scanning the main building's facade. Every window had a faint refractive edge along the frame, the signature of multi-layer bulletproof glass.

He walked past me without looking back. "Inside."

The entry hall was all clean stone and low light. No art on the walls, no unnecessary furniture. Nothing that wasn't load-bearing. I followed him through the door and stopped where the guard gestured, a few feet inside the threshold, while the others moved around me with quiet efficiency.

A woman stepped toward me. Broad-shouldered, close to six feet, hair pulled back tight enough that it looked almost architectural. She didn't introduce herself. She just looked at me once, head to toe, the way you'd assess cargo, and then moved in.

The search was thorough and impersonal. Shoulders first, then down the sides, methodical pressure checking every seam and fold. Waist, hips, the small of my back. She found my phone in my jacket pocket and handed it to the man with the tattooed arms without breaking stride. He dropped it into a clear evidence bag.

She moved down each leg, checking the inner seams, the cuffs, the tongue of each boot. Then back up. When her fingers reached my collar, she paused.

"Necklace off."

My hand came up on reflex and closed around the pendant. "It was my mother's."

"Off."

Her voice didn't change. She just waited, one hand already extended palm-up.

I looked past her shoulder. He was standing near the base of the stairs now, phone in hand, thumb scrolling through something. He wasn't looking at me. He wasn't looking at anything in particular.

"It's just a necklace," I said. Kept my voice level. Not pleading, because that would make it seem like I had something to hide. Just factual. "She gave it to me before she died."

The woman's hand didn't move. "I don't care what it is. Take it off."

I undid the clasp with fingers that didn't shake. I made sure they didn't. I dropped the chain into her palm. The obsidian rose swung once and went still. She turned it over, ran her thumb across the surface, held it up to the light and squinted at the edges. Looking for hollow compartments, maybe. Hidden seams. Anything that didn't belong.

What a shame. Neither of them was ever going to find a damn thing.

The guard placed the necklace into the evidence bag, zipped it shut, and handed it to someone beside her, then continued the search.

The next five minutes were quiet. She checked my collar, examined the lining, pressed down along the back seam with every stitch accounted for. Then she stepped back, looked at me once, and set a neatly folded set of clothes on the chair in front of me.

The meaning was clear.

I looked at her for a second, then started changing.

They didn't turn away. I took off my own clothes piece by piece and handed them over. One of them took the boots and pried open the sole right there, checked inside, glued it back, and dropped them into a clear evidence bag. The other recorded everything and sealed each item separately, each with its own label.

Thorough. I had to give them that.

I put on the gray tracksuit. Plain material, a size too big. I rolled up the sleeves, sat on the edge of the bed, and watched them pack up the last evidence bag, then leave. The door closed behind them with a soft click that sounded louder than it should have.

I put my hand to my neck, where a chain used to be.

Not anymore.

The skin there felt exposed. I pressed my fingertips against the spot where the obsidian rose used to rest, right at the hollow of my throat, and felt my own pulse. Steady. Slower than I expected. Good. That was good.

I lowered my hand and stood when I heard footsteps outside. The door opened. A man in his sixties, impeccably dressed in a dark suit, silver hair combed back without a strand out of place. He didn't introduce himself. Just gestured toward the hallway with one gloved hand.

I followed him up a staircase. Marble steps, wrought iron railing, everything designed to look elegant and feel cold. The lights were recessed, casting soft pools of illumination every few feet, but the corners stayed dark. I counted the steps. Twenty-two to the landing, then a turn, then fourteen more.

He stopped in front of a door on the second floor. Under the bright overhead light, his meticulously groomed silver hair gleamed like polished metal. He opened the door, stepped aside, and waited.

I walked in.

The room was bigger than I expected. A bed with a simple gray duvet, a nightstand, a desk and chair by the window. The window itself was large, floor-to-ceiling, but the view was just darkness and the faint sound of waves. I walked over and pressed my palm against the glass. Cold. Thick. The kind of glass that didn't break.

I turned back. The butler was gone. The door was closed.

I sat on the edge of the bed and tried to organize my thoughts, all of it laid out in sequence, methodical. I'd gotten as far as the guardhouse when footsteps in the hallway cut through the silence. Quicker than the guards, more purposeful, with the faint click of hard-soled shoes on stone.

Then a knock.

"Come in."

A middle-aged woman in a white coat stepped in. Silver-framed glasses, dark hair shot through with gray and pulled back into a low knot, a black medical bag in one hand. She saw me sitting on the bed, said nothing, walked straight over, pulled the desk chair out and sat down, opened the bag.

"I'm Marco Santini," she said, pulling out a penlight and a stethoscope. "You can call me Marco. I'm the private physician here."

Private physician. Not "a doctor."

She examined the bruising on my neck. Her fingers were cool, firm, methodical. She pressed along the edges of the discoloration, checking for depth, for damage to the underlying tissue.

I kept my breathing even, my gaze fixed on the wall behind her. A small crack ran down from the corner of the ceiling. I traced it with my eyes while she worked.

"Any difficulty breathing? Pain when swallowing?"

"Throat's a little hoarse. Nothing else."

She hummed, made a note. "Normal." She moved to my wrists, turned them over, examined the ligature marks from the zip ties. Her expression didn't change. She'd seen worse. I could tell from the way she didn't flinch, didn't pause, didn't offer anything that sounded like sympathy.

"Soft tissue contusion," she said, writing in her notebook. "Airway not compromised." She handed me a small tube of anti-inflammatory gel and an ice pack wrapped in a thin towel. "Use this if it hurts."

I took them. The ice pack was already starting to sweat condensation onto the towel. I set it on the nightstand. Didn't thank her. She didn't wait for me to.

"If you have any symptoms, dizziness, nausea, difficulty breathing, have someone get me. Doesn't matter what time."

I nodded.

She walked to the door, hand on the knob.

"Marco," I said.

She stopped.

I kept my voice level. Calm. Just asking a simple question.

"What's the name of the man who owns this place?"

Silence. Two seconds. Maybe three. Long enough for me to notice the way her hand tightened slightly on the door handle, the way her eyes flicked toward the hallway before coming back to me.

She was deciding. Calculating. Whether to tell me. Whether it mattered.

"Vincent Romano," she finally said. Her voice was steady, professional, but there was something careful in the way she said it. Like the name itself had weight.