The headache was a physical weight, pressing behind Julian's eyes like a blunt instrument.
He woke up with the taste of ash in his mouth. The memories of the night were fractured-flashes of heat, the scent of rain and cold fir, a soft body that yielded and then vanished. He sat up, the sheet pooling at his waist, and ran a hand through his hair.
His eyes landed on the nightstand.
The Patek Philippe sat there, glinting in the morning sun. But it was sitting unevenly.
He reached out and lifted the watch.
The hundred-dollar bill stared up at him. Benjamin Franklin looked almost mocking.
Julian stared at it. The silence in the room grew deafening. His jaw clenched so hard a muscle feathered in his cheek. He crushed the bill in his fist, the paper crinkling violently, and hurled it across the room.
"Maverick!"
The door burst open instantly. Maverick, his head of security, stepped in, his eyes scanning the room for a threat. He saw the disheveled bed, the open balcony door, and the sheer fury radiating off his boss.
"Get me the tapes," Julian said, his voice deadly quiet. "Every camera. Every angle. Last six hours."
Five miles away, the air in the NYU library was thick with the smell of old paper and dust.
Sienna sat in a corner carrel, her hood pulled up. To anyone passing by, she was just another scholarship student stressing over finals. But on the screen of her battered laptop, lines of code were cascading like green rain.
Her fingers flew across the keyboard. No wasted movement.
She bypassed the hotel's firewall in under forty seconds. It was insultingly easy. She located the video files for the penthouse floor and the exterior cameras.
Select all. Delete. Overwrite.
She didn't just erase them; she shredded the data, filling the digital void with random noise.
"Sir." The technician in the hotel security room was sweating. His hands shook as he pointed at the monitors. "It's... it's gone."
Julian stood behind him, arms crossed. On the screen, where there should have been footage of the hallway and the terrace, there was only static. Snow.
"A glitch?" Maverick asked.
"No," Julian said. He leaned in, staring at the white noise. "That's a message."
He turned and walked back into the bedroom. He moved to the bed, stripping the sheets back. There. Caught in the fabric of the pillowcase. A single, long black hair. He picked it up, winding it around his finger. It was the only proof she existed.
He walked to the terrace. He ran his hand along the railing. The metal was scratched. A faint, almost invisible groove where a wire had bitten into the steel.
He looked over the edge. Sixty floors.
Vertigo washed over him, but he didn't step back.
"She jumped," he whispered. A dark, twisted smile touched his lips. "She didn't just jump. She descended five floors in complete darkness without triggering a single sensor."
"Sir?" Maverick asked from the doorway.
"Find her," Julian ordered. He turned back to the room. "Find the woman who knows how to make herself invisible."
Sienna closed her laptop. She slid it into her backpack and stood up, adjusting her glasses.
Her phone buzzed. A text from Seraphina.
Status?
Sienna typed back one handedly as she walked toward the exit.
Ghosted. He's looking.
She walked out of the library and into the harsh daylight. At the Sullivan estate, her father was waiting. He was pacing the foyer when she walked in.
"Well?" Robert demanded. He didn't ask if she was okay. He didn't ask why she was wearing yesterday's clothes. "Did you get it?"
Sienna walked past him toward the stairs. "He was indisposed. The release form remains unsigned."
"You useless-" Robert grabbed her arm.
Sienna stopped. She didn't pull away. She just looked at his hand on her sleeve, then up at his face. Her eyes were devoid of anything resembling fear.
"He's not dead," she said softly. "Be grateful for that."
She pulled her arm free and walked up the stairs. In Julian's office across town, the shredder was humming. A photo of Sienna Sullivan-plain, boring, scholarship student-was being turned into confetti.
"Not her," Julian said, dismissing the file Maverick had brought. "Too weak. Too ordinary. Keep looking."