Chapter 11
Chapter 11
Elara infiltrates the Meridian Hotel penthouse during the Collectors' dinner, using her catering disguise to reach the forty-second floor. Kael creates a diversion through the service corridor, drawing security away. In the penthouse, Elara spots Desmond Crane and observes the scarred woman from the photographs speaking privately with him. She discovers Soren Marsh is real and present at the dinner. When security sweeps arrive earlier than expected, Elara hides and overhears Crane discussing Tobias's capture and a timeline that suggests the Collectors plan to move against her and Kael within hours. She narrowly escapes the penthouse after a close encounter with a guard, regroups with Kael in the stairwell, and they flee the hotel together. The chapter ends with Kael revealing that Tobias has gone silent—they can't reach him on comms—and the safe house may be compromised.
The elevator hummed. Forty-two floors of vertebrae stacked between me and Desmond Crane, and each one ticked past like a countdown I couldn't stop.
Kael's voice sat low in my ear, a presence I'd learned to carry the way you carry a splinter—impossible to forget, not quite painful enough to remove. "East corridor is clear. I'm entering the service access now."
"Copy." The word felt foreign in my mouth. Military, clipped. Not mine. But nothing about tonight was mine—not the clothes, not the face I'd scrubbed of every defining mark, not the name on the badge clipped to my apron.
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