Chapter 3 - The Shadow in the Mirror
Vincent did not look at her. His broad shoulders blocked the stranger entirely from her line of sight, his body positioned like a shield.
“Who is he?” Mave whispered, her fingers tightening around her champagne flute so hard her knuckles turned white.
“A ghost from a graveyard I thought I paved over,” Vincent muttered, his hand resting inches from his holster. “Stay behind me. If I tell you to run, you don't look back. You go straight to the Maybach.”
Across the room, the scarred man stopped. He didn't try to force his way past Vincent. Instead, he lifted two fingers in a slow, mocking salute, turned on his heel, and vanished out the side service doors before Vincent’s security detail could react.
The atmosphere in the ballroom remained outwardly festive, but the air around Vincent had turned to ice.
By midnight, they were inside the black Maybach, speeding away from the Plaza into the freezing rain. Mave sat beside him, her heart still hammering against her ribs. She looked out the tinted window as downtown neon smeared into violent red and yellow streaks.
Vincent did not look at the city. His eyes remained fixed firmly on the rearview mirror, tracking a gray sedan weaving dangerously through traffic three car lengths behind them.
“He was looking at me,” Mave finally broke the silence, her voice trembling slightly. “Why was he looking at me?”
Vincent’s jaw clenched so hard a muscle twitched in his cheek. “Because he thinks you’re my weakness.”
“I’m your secretary, Vincent.”
“You’re the only person in my life who isn’t afraid of me,” he snapped, turning his dark eyes toward her. “In my world, that makes you a target.”
The Maybach took a sharp turn into the subterranean parking garage of the syndicate's headquarters. The tires screeched against the concrete. Before the car had even fully stopped, Vincent’s phone buzzed aggressively.
He glanced at the screen, and his face went entirely pale.
“What is it?” Mave asked.
“The Belize holding company,” Vincent whispered, his voice dangerously quiet. “It wasn’t a bookkeeping error. Someone routed thirty million dollars of syndicate capital through that trucking firm in New Jersey today. It’s an inside job.”
Mave’s blood ran cold. She pulled out her tablet, tapping furiously against the screen to pull up the master network logs. “I restricted access to those files three days ago. Only two people in the entire building have the master decryption keys: me... and Donovan.”
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Vincent stared at her, the pieces falling into place with terrifying clarity. Donovan—the sick associate who hadn’t come to work today. Donovan, who had been leaking syndicate assets to a rival faction led by the scarred man at the hotel.
“Get out of the car,” Vincent commanded, grabbing her arm gently but firmly. “We’re going up to the vault.”
