“Does Bastion know?”
I didn’t answer.
He grunted, which for Rome is a nod you can hear. “Call if you need bones broken.”
“Right now. I need silence,” I ended the call.
The board lit up across my screens—access logs, cameras, staff rosters.
I dragged strings between timestamps until a picture formed, where he’d stood, who had looked past him, who hadn’t. Three staffers paused too long by her hallway last week. One had that twitchy habit of smoothing her skirt when she lies. One had a boyfriend with debt. One was bored.
I pulled their contracts. Moved two to day-shift. Sent the bored one home with pay and a red flag on her file that would make other buildings say no. She’d think it was her idea to leave. It was mine.
She drinks her coffee at fifty-six degrees because anything hotter makes her stomach hurt. Anyone who changes that gets replaced.
I advanced our machine start time by four minutes and set a reminder to myself to have Bastion toss the first cup if she reached for it distracted tomorrow. He forgets these things, then hates himself for forgetting. I don’t forget.
He—Alaric; fine, I’ll name him once on a private screen—had bragged about dinner, about powder on the table like it was a centerpiece.
I traced his schedule with hers. He’d been near three of her public events in the last two weeks, one brunch, one gallery opening, one “private tasting” that wasn’t.
None of those contact points existed in official logs. Men like him like to be “off-book” because it feels like power.
All off-book routes run through doors someone else owns. Today that someone else was me.
I mirrored his phone for metadata only. Consent is a line. He didn’t get consent, so I didn’t bother worrying about his. I took his rhythms instead, the times he checked, the times he lied about checking. He liked to text at 07:12 and 19:41. He liked to call at 22:03. Cute. The kind of clockwork that begs for a wrench.
At 07:09 I pushed a courier alert to his screen from a restaurant he tries to impress people with. A “your table is available now” bluff. He bit. He always would. Men who stand on empty floors love to be seen on busy ones.
He left the lobby at 07:11 and missed her elevator by twenty seconds. She didn’t see him; she saw the jacket I’d sent—light weight she’d actually keep on.
I watched her walk to the car. Headache threshold reading low—good. She got in. The driver knew not to speak to her before she wanted words. He didn’t. Good.
I didn’t look at her face. Looking when I’m working makes me stupid.
At 08:30, I cut the building’s lobby music by half and raised the glass tint by seven degrees. She doesn’t like glare before ten. No one noticed the change; they never do. They just behave better when the world fits them.
Bastion texted me a photo from the tower corridor—empty. He’d left nothing behind, like I asked.
He doesn’t say much when he does what he promises. The message saidMeasured. Move him.I sent backAlready moving.
By noon, his keycard failed in front of a junior heir he wanted to impress. He laughed it off; the heir didn’t. I saw his embarrassment. He would go looking for the source of that feeling. He wouldn’t find me.
By two, I pushed a small scheduling error into his calendar that had him double-booked with a handler he fears and a friend he uses. He chose the friend. The handler sent three messages with clipped punctuation. He’d think the day turned on him. Days don’t turn. People do.
At three, I called a doctor. Not the ones dynasty uses to carve girls into numbers. Ours. The one who knows how to say “rest” without making it sound like failure. I had him hold a slot for a headache she might not have. We plan for the worst; we never speak it aloud.
I checked her cameras, then rerouted motion alerts for that corridor directly to my phone. They wouldn’t ping staff anymore. They would ping me. I don’t mind being the only one who hears it.
The elevator ghost-stop reported a 7% spike in his heart rate every time it hit 42. By early evening, he’d decide the building was broken. It wasn’t. He was.
I ordered dinner delivery to the restaurant we own because it saves time to accept the truth of ownership. I had them put the wine Bastion likes on the table and the lighter one she can actually drink without getting dizzy. No smoke allowed; Bastion would light anyway. I flagged the host to look away.
Rome updated me from the docks: three men in concrete, one runner, manifests recovered from a phone he threw too late. Ports bleed louder. They demand Bastion’s version ofconversation. Good. He needed somewhere to put his hands that wasn’t a throat I couldn’t let him crush.
I set one last thing before I shut the screens: Veil alerts for a single account. Not to stalk. To know when the day finally gave us back what it stole.
If she posted, I wanted the vibration to find Bastion’s pocket.
