The Selene Suite was not a cell. It was a statement.
I had it built on the top floor of a discreet, fortified building I owned two blocks from the opera house. Its purpose was to house valuable, non-hostile assets—a rival's heir needing "protection," a corrupt politician waiting for a deal to close, a pianist whose silence needed to be comfortable. It was a gilded cage, designed to soothe and pacify with its luxury.
Tonight, it held a detective.
I stood in the suite's control room, a small adjacent chamber lined with monitors showing every angle of the main room, the bathroom (discreetly obscured), and the entrance hall. On screen, Ava Sterling was a study in contained chaos.
She had refused the chair. Instead, she paced the perimeter of the lavish living area, her bound hands held out in front of her like a prisoner's, but her steps were those of a predator assessing a new enclosure. Her eyes raked over the floor-to-ceiling windows (reinforced, bulletproof, offering a breathtaking, dizzying view of the city lights), the original modern art on the walls, the plush white sofa that cost more than her annual salary. Her lip curled. Not in awe, but in derision.
Good. Derision I could work with. Fear would have been simpler, but dull.
Viktor materialized at my shoulder, a silent shadow. He held a tablet with the full, deep-dig dossier on Ava Sterling. He did not question my decision. He had served my father, and now he served me. But his silence had a weight.
"It's a risk, Don Rossi," he finally said, his voice gravel.
"Everything is a risk, Viktor. Calculating it is our job." I kept my eyes on the monitor. She was testing the windows now, pressing her forehead against the cool glass, looking for seams. "What does the dossier say she wants?"
"To be seen," Viktor said simply. He scrolled. "Negligent parents. Younger sister is the golden child. Ava worked three jobs through school. Put herself through the academy top of her class, but advancement is slow. She fights for every scrap. This case," he tapped the screen, "the John Doe at the docks. It's her first lead homicide. No one else wants it. A dead nobody in a bad part of town."
A dead nobody who happened to be a courier for the Scalisi family, my rivals. A courier who had tried to skim from a product shipment. My men had handled it. Cleanly. Or so I'd thought.
She wanted to be seen. And she had seen too much.
"She is a candle flame in a wind tunnel," I murmured, more to myself than to Viktor. "Trying desperately to cast light, not knowing the wind will snuff her out."
"We could be the wind," Viktor suggested, his meaning clear.
I turned from the monitors to look at him. The rose scent in the room thickened, a subtle sign of my displeasure. "We are not the wind that snuffs. Not this time." I had made my decision. The anomaly would be studied, understood, and then… then I would decide. "Have her bindings removed. Bring her tea, food. Nothing she could use as a weapon. I'll speak to her in twenty minutes."
"Alone?"
"Especially alone."
He gave a short nod and left to relay the orders.
On the screen, I watched as Leo entered the suite with another enforcer. Ava spun, instantly defensive. Leo, to his credit, kept his movements slow and clear. He showed her a pair of safety scissors, snipped the zip-tie, and stepped back immediately. He pointed to the low table where a pot of tea and a small plate of sandwiches had appeared. He said nothing. Then both men left, locking the door with a soft, definitive click.
Ava stared at her freed wrists, rubbing the red marks. She didn't rush to the door. She knew it was locked. She looked at the tea, suspicious. Then, her practicality overruling her pride, she picked up a sandwich, sniffed it, and took a small, ravenous bite. She was starving. Of course she was. The dossier said she lived on instant noodles and determination.
A strange, protective anger simmered in my veins. This fierce, clever creature, being ground down by a world that didn't deserve her. My world had done worse, but it was my world. The hypocrisy of the thought did not escape me.
After precisely twenty minutes, I left the control room, walked the short, carpeted hallway, and keyed the entry code. The lock disengaged with a hushed sigh.
I entered without knocking.
She was on the sofa now, perched on the very edge, the teacup cradled in her hands. She'd eaten half a sandwich. She looked up, and the full force of her brown eyes hit me again. The fear was there now, banked beneath layers of defiance and razor-sharp curiosity. She was cataloging me: the tailored black slacks, the simple but obscenely expensive silk shirt, the lack of visible weapons, the way I moved—a silent, controlled flow of energy.
"You," she stated.
"Me," I agreed, closing the door behind me. I did not approach. I leaned against the doorframe, crossing my arms, making myself a part of the architecture of her cage. "Are you comfortable, Detective Sterling?"
"Is that a joke?" Her voice was hoarse. "You kidnapped me."
"I prevented your murder," I corrected, my tone mild. "Then I offered you hospitality. There is a difference."
"Who are you?" The question was a demand.
"For now, you may call me Ling." It was a concession, giving her my given name. A piece of me, offered to see what she would do with it.
"Ling." She tested the name. It sounded different in her mouth. Not a title, but a word. "And what are you, Ling? Head of 'hospitality' for the mob?"
A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched my lips. So sharp. "I am the one who decides what happens in this city. The one your John Doe foolishly crossed."
Her body went very still. The pieces were slamming together in her mind. The clean-up. The efficiency. The sheer, audacious power it took to abduct a police detective and place her in a penthouse. She was in the presence of the spider at the center of the web.
"You killed him," she whispered, not as an accusation, but as a final, grim confirmation.
"I ordered it. He betrayed a trust. In my world, that has a price." I pushed off the doorframe and took two steps into the room. Her scent spiked—linen, graphite, and now, the sharp, green tang of fear. It was not the cloying, sweet fear of a typical Omega. It was bracing. Clear. It focused me. "Your world has rules, Detective. Mine has laws. Older ones. The body will not be found. Your case is, for all intents and purposes, closed."
Her knuckles were white around the teacup. "I can't just close it."
"You can. You will." I took another step. She didn't flinch. "If you pursue this, the people who actually killed him—the ones with bleach and bags—will find you. And they will not bring you to a suite with tea."
"And you will?" The challenge was back. "Why? Why am I here? Why not just let them… handle it?"
The million-dollar question. The one I was still answering for myself.
I moved to the window, looking out at the city I controlled. "Because you are an interesting variable." I glanced back at her. "You walked into a lion's den armed with nothing but a badge and a hunch. You showed no scent, no submission. You looked my man in the eye and accused him of a crime while zip-tied to a chair." I turned fully to face her. "That is either spectacular bravery or profound stupidity. I wish to determine which."
Her cheeks flushed. Anger, not shame. "It's my job."
"It is a suicide mission," I countered, my voice dropping, becoming more intimate, more dangerous. "Driven by what? A need to prove yourself to parents who will never see you? To a precinct that gave you a dead-end case to fail?"
She recoiled as if struck. The truth, when aimed with precision, was the most devastating weapon.
I had overstepped. I saw the raw hurt flash in her eyes before she shuttered it behind a wall of ice. I felt a pang—not of guilt, but of regret. I had damaged the interesting thing.
I softened my approach, not my voice, but my posture. I uncrossed my arms. "You have a strong spirit, Ava Sterling. In another life, it might have made you great. In this one, it will get you killed." I walked toward the door, my decision made. "You will stay here tonight. Tomorrow, you will be driven to a location of your choosing. You will return to your life. You will forget the docks, forget the John Doe, forget the men in black."
I paused at the threshold. She was watching me, her face pale, her body trembling with suppressed adrenaline and fury.
"But," I said, echoing my words from the opera house, letting my scent—the rose, the steel—waft toward her one more time, "you would be wise to remember this conversation. And to remember that for one night, the most dangerous person in this city looked at you… and chose to let you live."
I left, the lock engaging behind me.
Back in the control room, I watched her on the monitor. She didn't move for a full minute. Then, she slowly placed the teacup on the table, stood up, and walked to the center of the lavish, empty room. She wrapped her arms around herself, a solitary figure surrounded by oppressive luxury.
She did not cry. She just stood there, breathing, thinking.
Viktor spoke from behind me. "And tomorrow?"
I didn't take my eyes off her. "Tomorrow, we see if the candle flame is smart enough to step out of the wind. And if not…" I watched her lift her chin, a gesture of stubborn resilience that sent a strange heat through my blood. "If not, then perhaps we redirect the gale."
The anomaly was no longer just an anomaly. She was a puzzle. A project.
Mine.
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