Page 59 of Dominion’s Collar

"Interesting," he says.

"It's not interesting."

"You won't investigate your own submissive when she's digging around inside Dominion. That's beyond interesting. That's a decision you're making with something other than your head."

"She's not the threat."

"I didn't say she was." He returns to the chair. Sets the bourbon down. "I said investigating her would give you answers. You'd rather not have them. That tells me exactly what I need to know about where you are with this woman."

He's right. The refusal is the tell, and Luc reads my tells as cleanly as I read everyone else's.

"What I want," I say, "is the Elysium infrastructure. Not Natalie's privacy. Ownership records, access logs, booking systems, security protocols. Who had keys. Who assigned rooms. Who staffed the safety committee and how reviews were conducted. The structure of how the club operated."

"You want to know whether Gaudet's proximity had a structural explanation."

"I want to know whether the things I observed had a mechanism behind them."

"Booking systems are the interesting piece," Luc says. He's in operational mode now, the needling replaced by the focused competence that built Rapier from the ground up.

He leans forward. "If Gaudet had access to booking information through his committee role, he'd know who was using which room on any given night," he says. "That's logistical knowledge. Most people wouldn't look twice at it."

"But if someone wanted to use a specific room, or know who was using one⁠—"

"Then that access becomes something else entirely." Luc reaches for his phone. "Remy's going to want to know why."

"Tell him I'm revisiting Elysium."

"He'll ask what prompted it."

"Tell him I should've done it when Elysium closed."

Luc makes the call standing at the window, his voice low enough that I catch tone without words.

Remy's response is brief. Then longer. Luc glances at me.

"He wants to know if you're all right."

The question lands differently coming from Remy.

Luc is the operational mind. Remy is the man I'd call if the problem weren't professional. We've been holding the same kind of weight for the same number of years, and that recognition doesn't require explanation between us.

"Tell him I will be."

Luc relays it. Ends the call. Slides the phone back into his pocket.

"He'll pull property records tonight. Archived business filings, insurance, whatever's public. The rest takes longer." He pauses. "Sebastien. If this is what you think it might be, you're going to need more than a pad and a pen."

"I know."

"And if your submissive is investigating the same thing from a different angle, at some point those angles converge. You need to be ready for what happens when she finds out you knew."

I don't have an answer for that. Not yet.

Luc checks his watch. His phone appears again. A short text, practiced, the gesture of a man whose life includes someone who expects to know where he is and when he's coming home.

"Tell her I said hello," I say.

"Tell her yourself. She already thinks you don't eat enough." But the corner of his mouth shifts. "I told her I'd be late. She reminded me I'm always late."