Page 58 of Dominion’s Collar

"Walk me through what changed." He leans back, bourbon balanced on his thigh. "You sat with this since Elysium closed and got nowhere. What's different now?"

"Natalie."

The name sits between us.

Luc's mouth adjusts by a fraction. The adjustment carries more commentary than most people fit into a paragraph.

"Your submissive," he says. "The first one you've ever collared. That Natalie."

"Yes, jackass, that Natalie. She's asking questions about Elysium that don't match the book she described."

"What kind of questions?"

"The kind that overlap with the fragments on that pad. She's talking to the same people, circling the same events, pulling at the same threads I pulled back then. Except she's doing it with a direction I never had."

Luc absorbs this. "So she's researching thoroughly."

"Not researching. Investigating. There's a difference. I don't know what she's looking for, but her cover is a book on consent culture and private communities. The cover is good enough that I didn't question it for weeks."

"But now you do."

"The questions have narrowed. She's not writing about BDSM culture. She's looking for something specific, and whatever it is connects to the same cluster of incidents I never managed to resolve."

Luc stands. The motion is fluid, practiced. He crosses to the window and looks out at the back garden, hands in his pockets.

Luc thinks better when he's moving.

"And Gaudet," he says, reading the name from the legal pad without turning around.

"Gaudet keeps appearing. Then and now. At the edges, not the center. Comforting. Mediating. Explaining. Always helpful. Always present after something goes wrong."

"That's not evidence. That's a personality type."

"Sometimes, but not always."

"You also know that if you're wrong, you're accusing a respected member of the community based on proximity and instinct."

"I'm not accusing him. I'm telling you his name appears on both lists."

Luc turns from the window. "Our background check on Natalie came back clean."

"So did mine."

Luc's eyebrows lift. "You ran a separate check on your own submissive? Without telling us."

"I used a private contact for verification. I wanted it independent."

"Independent." The word comes back dry. "You mean you didn't trust ours."

"I mean I wanted two sets of eyes. Both came back clean."

"Clean means the cover holds, not that there's nothing underneath it." He crosses his arms. "You want me to take it apart? Rapier can have her real story in a day."

My hand goes still on the scotch glass. "No."

The word fills the room.

Luc watches me with the focused stillness of someone who just found what he was looking for.