Chapter 1 - The Blood on the White Sheet
I jerked upright in Sebastian Ward’s bed and whispered, “Is that blood?”
Sebastian crossed the bedroom and picked up the white sheet with one tattooed hand.
A tiny black fiber clung to the edge of the dark-red stain.
It did not belong to either of us.
Sebastian suddenly stopped looking guilty.
He looked dangerous.
For several seconds, neither of us moved.
The morning had been quiet until then.
Too quiet.
The storm that had hammered Manhattan through the night had finally moved east, leaving Crown Meridian Tower wrapped in pale morning light. From Sebastian’s bedroom, I could see half the city through floor-to-ceiling windows—the Empire State Building rising between towers, wet rooftops reflecting sunrise, traffic beginning far below.
But Sebastian wasn’t looking outside.
He was staring at the sheet.
Twenty minutes earlier, he had returned from the kitchen carrying two coffees.
He had walked into the bedroom shirtless, dark trousers low on his hips, tattoos covering both arms and part of his chest. Anyone seeing him for the first time would have noticed the strength, the scars, the wolf tattoo wrapping around his right shoulder.
I noticed his face.
The instant he saw the blood, everything changed.
His hand tightened around one coffee cup.
His eyes moved from the sheet to me.
Then back again.
“What happened?” he had asked.
The question frightened me more than the blood.
Because Sebastian Ward was not a man who asked questions unless he already knew the answer.
Or feared it.
I pulled the blanket higher.
“I don’t know.”
His jaw tightened.
Nine times in one night.
That was what he had joked about hours earlier beneath the Manhattan skyline.
A reckless challenge whispered against my hair after weeks of tension neither of us had been willing to name.
But whatever had happened between Sebastian and me had been consensual, impulsive, and deeply personal.
And nothing I remembered explained blood.
Sebastian placed the coffee on the nightstand.
“Are you hurt?”
“I don’t think so.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
I almost laughed from nerves.
“Sebastian, I just woke up.”
He crouched in front of me.
For a man whose name made grown men lower their voices in restaurants, he could become surprisingly careful when he wanted to.
His gaze searched my face.
“Anything hurt?”
“No.”
“Dizzy?”
“No.”
“Headache?”
I hesitated.
“A little.”
His expression changed.
“How much?”
“Normal morning-after level.”
“Lena.”
The use of my name stopped me.
Nobody else called me that way.
Not like it carried weight.
Not like he was afraid the next answer might break something.
“I’m okay,” I said.
His eyes dropped to my wrist.
There was a faint mark there.
Not a bruise exactly.
More like pressure from something narrow.
Sebastian saw it too.
His entire body went still.
“What?” I asked.
He took my hand.
“Do you remember this?”
I looked down.
“No.”
His thumb hovered near the mark without touching it.
Then his eyes went to the bedroom door.
That was when I asked the question.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Sebastian stood.
He crossed the room slowly.
“Something about last night doesn’t make sense.”
I swallowed.
“What?”
He looked toward the door again.
I followed his gaze.
“Sebastian…”
His hand closed around the lock.
“Who else was here?” I asked.
Silence.
Then he turned the lock.
Click.
The sound seemed enormous.
“Nobody should have been.”
Should have been.
I stared at him.
“That is not the same as nobody was.”
“I know.”
A chill moved through me.
Sebastian walked to the bedside table and reached beneath it.
When his hand came back, he was holding a phone I had never seen before.
Black.
No case.
No visible logo.
He dialed one number.
A man answered immediately.
“Boss?”
“Mateo.”
Sebastian’s voice had changed.
No warmth.
No hesitation.
The version of Sebastian sitting beside me minutes ago had disappeared.
Now I understood why city prosecutors had spent years trying to prove that Sebastian Ward controlled half the private security contracts, nightclubs, shipping companies, and construction unions in Manhattan.
Rumors called him a mafia boss.
Sebastian called himself a businessman.
The truth lived somewhere between those words.
“Lock the residence floor,” Sebastian said. “Nobody leaves.”
A pause.
Mateo said something I couldn’t hear.
Sebastian’s eyes found mine.
“Pull every camera from midnight until now.”
Another pause.
“All of them.”
He ended the call.
I stared at him.
“Residence floor?”
“Private level.”
“How many people can access it?”
“Six.”
“That’s not nobody.”
“Five of them work for me.”
“And the sixth?”
His expression tightened.
“You.”
That did not reassure me.
I climbed out of bed, keeping the sheet around myself.
Sebastian immediately looked away.
The gesture was strangely respectful considering how little mystery remained between us after the night we had spent together.
I found my dress on a chair near the windows.
Black silk.
One heel was beside it.
The other was missing.
I stopped.
“Sebastian.”
He turned.
“My shoe.”
“What about it?”
“There’s only one.”
He crossed the room.
We searched quickly.
Under the chair.
Near the bathroom.
Beside the bed.
Nothing.
My purse was there.
My phone.
My earrings.
My coat.
But one black heel had vanished.
Sebastian’s face became harder with every passing second.
“Did you leave the bedroom last night?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“You went to the bathroom.”
“That’s inside the bedroom.”
“After that?”
I looked at him.
“No.”
At least I thought I hadn’t.
Memory came in fragments.
Rain against the windows.
Sebastian laughing quietly when I told him his reputation was ridiculous.
His hand around mine.
Champagne I barely drank.
The city lights.
The clock reading 1:17 a.m.
Then—
Nothing.
Not exactly nothing.
A blur.
I closed my eyes.
“What?”
Sebastian was watching me.
“I remember waking up.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“What happened?”
“There was somebody talking.”
His posture changed.
“Who?”
“I thought it was you.”
“What did they say?”
I pressed my fingers against my temple.
The memory felt like trying to grab smoke.
“I don’t know.”
“Lena.”
“I’m trying.”
A voice.
Low.
Close.
Not Sebastian’s.
Or maybe it had been.
No.
There had been another sound too.
A soft electronic beep.
Then footsteps.
I opened my eyes.
“I heard the door.”
Sebastian stared at me.
“The bedroom door?”
“I think so.”
His gaze sharpened.
“This door didn’t open last night.”
“How do you know?”
“I locked it.”
I looked at the electronic panel beside the frame.
“Can someone override it?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
He didn’t answer.
That was answer enough.
A knock came from outside.
Three short knocks.
Two long.
Sebastian unlocked the door.
A man stepped inside.
Mateo Ruiz was in his early forties, broad-shouldered, dressed in a dark suit without a tie. I had met him twice before.
Both times, he had watched me as though deciding whether I was a threat.
This morning he seemed to have decided there was a bigger one.
He held a tablet.
“The floor is sealed.”
“Cameras?”
Mateo looked at me.
Then back at Sebastian.
“We have a problem.”
Sebastian took the tablet.
“What?”
“There’s a gap.”
“How long?”
“Seven minutes.”
Sebastian’s voice went dangerously quiet.
“That system has four backups.”
“I know.”
“Then how is there a gap?”
“Someone deleted all four.”
Sebastian looked at the screen.
“What time?”
Mateo answered.
“3:12 to 3:19.”
My stomach dropped.
Sebastian noticed.
“What?”
I looked at him.
“That’s around when I woke up.”
Nobody spoke.
Mateo’s eyes shifted to me.
“What do you remember?”
“A door.”
“Anything else?”
“A voice.”
“Male?”
“I think so.”
Sebastian turned to Mateo.
“Access logs.”
Mateo hesitated.
That hesitation was worse than everything else.
“Say it.”
“The bedroom lock registered an emergency override at 3:14.”
Sebastian took one step closer.
“Whose credentials?”
Mateo looked toward me again.
Then he said, “Yours.”
Sebastian’s face did not move.
But something in the room changed.
I had seen anger before.
This was different.
This was control pushed so hard it became frightening.
“My credentials were with me.”
“I know.”
“Then somebody cloned them.”
“That’s what it looks like.”
Sebastian handed the tablet back.
“Run every employee.”
“Already started.”
“Phones, cars, building exits, everything.”
Mateo nodded.
Sebastian looked toward the bed.
“The stain gets tested.”
My stomach twisted.
“It’s probably mine.”
Sebastian looked at me.
“We’re not guessing.”
He crossed to the sheet.
Using a clean towel, he lifted the stained section carefully.
That was when something dropped onto the floor.
A tiny metallic sound.
All three of us looked down.
A silver disk lay on the hardwood.
Smaller than a dime.
Mateo crouched first.
“Don’t touch it.”
Sebastian stared.
“What is it?”
Mateo pulled a penlight from his pocket.
He examined the disk without moving it.
“Could be a transmitter.”
My throat tightened.
“Like a microphone?”
“Maybe.”
Sebastian’s expression became unreadable.
Mateo opened a small evidence bag and slid the disk inside.
“There’s something engraved.”
Sebastian moved closer.
“What?”
Mateo angled the bag toward the light.
Three characters were etched along the side.
C-17.
Sebastian stopped breathing for half a second.
I noticed.
“So you know what it means.”
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
His eyes met mine.
“I know what it used to mean.”
“What?”
Before he could answer, Mateo’s phone vibrated.
He looked at the screen.
Then at Sebastian.
“We found the shoe.”
My pulse jumped.
“Where?”
Mateo did not answer me.
He answered Sebastian.
“Service stairwell. Thirty-eighth floor.”
Sebastian’s penthouse occupied forty-one.
I stared at them.
“How did my shoe get three floors down?”
Mateo’s expression was grim.
“There’s more.”
He swiped his phone.
A security photograph appeared.
My missing black heel sat on the concrete stair.
Beside it was a smear of blood.
Much larger than the stain upstairs.
I gripped the blanket around myself.
Sebastian took the phone.
His face hardened.
“Whose blood?”
“Lab team is coming.”
Then Mateo swiped to the next photograph.
A man’s gold ring lay beside the shoe.
A crest was engraved into the surface.
Sebastian went pale.
I had never seen him pale before.
“Who does it belong to?” I asked.
He didn’t respond.
“Sebastian.”
His eyes stayed on the ring.
Finally, he whispered a name.
“Adrian Vale.”
Mateo looked toward the locked door.
“Boss, there’s one more problem.”
“What?”
“The stairwell camera came back online at 3:20.”
“And?”
Mateo turned the tablet around.
A frozen frame filled the screen.
The hallway.
My missing shoe.
A shadow moving toward the elevator.
And me.
Barefoot.
Walking beside someone whose face had been deliberately hidden from the camera.
I stared at the image.
“That’s impossible.”
Sebastian enlarged it.
My heart began pounding.
The timestamp read 3:20:11.
I was wearing Sebastian’s white shirt.
My head was lowered.
A man’s hand rested against my back.
Sebastian looked at me.
“You said you never left this room.”
“I don’t remember leaving.”
Mateo suddenly received another alert.
His eyes moved across the screen.
Then stopped.
“What now?” Sebastian asked.
Mateo looked toward the bedroom entrance.
“The private elevator just activated.”
Sebastian reached beneath his coat.
The elevator bell sounded outside.
Once.
The bedroom went silent.
May you like
Then someone knocked.
And from the other side of the door, a man said my name.
