Page 93 of Dominion’s Collar

I hang up and dial Remy. Two phone calls, a car tail, and a murder investigation. My Wednesday has been nothing if not intense.

"I'll be at Dominion tomorrow," I say. "With everything I have."

The pause on the other end is brief. "We'll be ready." His voice is calm in the way of a man who's already three steps into a plan. "Get some sleep, Natalie. Tomorrow's going to be a long day."

The line clicks off. I set the phone down on the table beside the case files and sit in the silence of my apartment.

Outside, an SUV is parked across the street with two Rapier guards inside it. I chose the detail because it was the better option between the two that Remy offered. Knowing they're there is the only thing keeping my hands steady enough to work.

When the last pin goes into the wall and I sit back, the work runs out of places to hide me.

The collar's absence pulses at my throat like a heartbeat with nothing to regulate. My fingers find the hollow where it sat and rest there. Not reaching. Just measuring what's gone.

Tomorrow I'll walk into Dominion without it. I'll face Sebastien without it. I'll build what Claire started without the man who withheld the truth about her death acting as the structure that holds me together.

I turn out the lights and sit with Claire in the dark.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Sebastien

The collar sits on my desk where I placed it the night everything ended. The lock is still open. I haven't closed it. I haven't moved it. The scotch beside it is from last night, untouched.

Morning light from the back garden catches the ruby's facets and throws a red thread across the desk.

I was on Rapier's floor when she came through Dominion's door. I watched it on the security feeds, audio and all. Cole locking the deadbolt. Luc heading for the stairs. Her voice, shaking underneath the control.

I stayed where I was. She told Luc she didn't want to see me. Fair enough. We both withheld more than we should have. I knew the stakes but Claire never did.

Remy came up after the debrief. He stood in the doorway and gave me the short version: followed from a compromised meeting with Cécile. Dark sedan. She called Renata, not me. She told them everything. Claire, the investigation, the evidence she'd spent years building.

She gave it to Remy and Luc. The people I should've brought in when the pattern formed.

Then Remy sat down across from me and stopped being operational.

'She didn't ask about you,' he said. 'And you should've come to me before you went to Luc.'

I didn't argue with either point.

'You brought Rapier into an investigation without telling Rapier what the investigation was actually about.' His voice was level. Not angry. Worse than angry. Disappointed in a way that had nothing to do with friendship and everything to do with how he runs his company.

'Luc was pulling records without knowing a member of this club might be connected to a murder. Cole was running security without knowing who the threat was. You gave my team half the picture and let them operate blind.'

'I was protecting the investigation.'

'You were protecting yourself. There's a difference.' He stood. 'I'll drive her home. We'll talk tomorrow.'

He drove her home. Left a Rapier detail outside her apartment.

I went home to a scotch I couldn't drink and a silence I couldn't fill.

The woman who wore the collar is across town behind a deadbolt and a Rapier detail. The distance between that fact and the collar on my desk is the measurement of what my silence cost.

I shower. Dress. Leave the scotch where it is. Leave the collar where it is.

The streetcar rattles past on St. Charles as I lock the front door. It makes the same noise it makes every morning. That kind of continuity means nothing when everything else has shifted underneath you.

Dominion is quiet when I arrive. I take the stairs to the third floor.