Atlas's hand came down on the desk.
The sound cracked through the room like a gunshot, and everything on the surface jumped: papers, inkwell, the small brass letter opener that skittered to the edge and hung there. The man standing opposite kept his eyes down, his hands clasped, and his breathing as controlled as a man could manage when the person across from him was looking at him like that.
"Ran away," Atlas repeated. Not a question. The words came out very quietly, which was worse. "You are standing in front of me, telling me that she ran away."
"According to our sources, yes. She jumped from the vehicle somewhere in the Silver District. Our men dispersed to search, but " The man's fingers tightened around themselves. "She wasn't found."
Atlas straightened. He pressed two fingers to his temple and said nothing for a moment, staring at a fixed point on the desk that had nothing to do with what he was actually seeing.
Do you have any idea, he thought, what you have just told me?
"Scatter every man we have through that district," he said finally. "Every single one. I don't care what else they were doing." He looked up, and the man took an involuntary half-step back. "Find her."
On the other side of the city, the convoy pulled through the Varkis gates in perfect formation and came to a stop at the front entrance.
The butler descended the steps as the lead car door opened. He had been waiting since the estimated arrival time, hands folded, posture correct, the expression of a man professionally trained never to show surprise.
The expression didn't survive contact with the empty seat.
Val stepped out. Straightened his jacket. Walked past the butler without breaking stride or offering a single word of explanation.
"Master," The butler turned, eyes moving to the vacant interior of the car. "The bride,"
The driver cleared his throat quietly from behind the open door.
"She ran," he said. "After attempting to injure the young master."
A beat of silence fell over the entrance like a dropped curtain. The staff who had assembled in quiet readiness, the housekeeper, two footmen, a maid with fresh flowers for the guest suite, stood perfectly still, each one processing the same information and arriving at the same conclusion.
The butler's face had gone the color of old plaster.
He didn't wait. He turned immediately and went to find William.
William was at his desk when the butler entered. He listened without turning around, without interrupting, without any visible change in his posture as the account was delivered, the empty car, the silver district, the men who had searched and found nothing.
When the butler finished, William was quiet for a moment.
"Where is Valentino now?"
"Headed to his room when he arrived, sir."
William nodded once. He was about to speak again when the telephone rang.
He frowned at it, a small, reflexive crease between the brows, the expression of a man whose thoughts have been interrupted at the wrong moment. He reached across the desk and lifted the receiver, pressing it to his ear.
He said nothing for a long time. Just listened.
Whatever came through the line did something to his face that the butler had never seen before and immediately understood he was not supposed to witness. He dropped his gaze to the carpet and kept it there.
"I understand," William said at last.
He set the receiver down with a careful motion. The butler did not move. William said nothing.
That was the threat.
------------
In his room, Val shrugged the jacket from his shoulders and dropped it over the back of the chair, working the tie loose with one hand. His lip curled as the image came back to him the way she had scrambled on the cobblestones, the torn silk, the bare feet hitting the street and not stopping. He had expected fear. He had gotten something more interesting than fear, and part of him, the part that kept score, had filed it away with satisfaction.
'It's just the beginning,′ he thought. ′I'll make you want to stop breathing before I'm done.′
The tattoo surfaced in his mind without invitation. The koi fish at the base of her neck, dark and precise against pale skin. He had seen it for only a second, but it had landed somewhere specific, somewhere that hadn't let go of it yet.
'You started this game. And I intend to finish it.'
He reached for his shirt buttons. The door slammed open.
He turned sharply, instinctively, and found Jeremy filling the frame. Jeremy, who never entered without knocking. Jeremy, whose face at this particular moment carried an expression Val didn't have an immediate category for.
"Well?" Val turned back to the mirror, resuming the buttons. "How frightened was she? I imagine the district gave her a proper welcome."
Jeremy didn't answer with the tone he expected.
"She was found," Jeremy said. "Half beaten to death."
Val's hands stopped. He stood very still for a moment, staring at his own reflection without seeing it. Then he turned around slowly.
"What did you just say?"
"By the time our men located her, she was barely breathing." Jeremy held his gaze. "Whoever it was, it wasn't our people. Someone else got to her first."
Something moved through Val's chest that he couldn't immediately account for. It wasn't concern, he told himself immediately and firmly that it wasn't concern, but it was something, and it was inconveniently present. He crossed the room in four strides and had Jeremy by the collar before either of them had fully registered the movement.
"I told you to scare her." His voice had dropped to something very low and very even. "Who touched her. Who gave that order!"
"We don't know yet "
"Find out." He released Jeremy and stepped back, jaw set, something working behind his eyes that he refused to examine too closely. "I want the hands of whoever did it. Fingers first."
Jeremy nodded, already moving.
"Where is she now?" The question came out before he'd decided to ask it.
"Silver District Hospital. Resources there aren't, they aren't sufficient, sir. She'll be transferred here as soon as she's stable enough to move." Jeremy paused at the door. "If she stabilizes."
"She will." The words came out harder than he intended, clipped and absolute. He turned back to the window, away from Jeremy's face. "She has to."
A beat.
"I will not have her die in some District hospital." His voice had gone quiet again, that particular quiet that had nothing calm about it. "She doesn't get to die until I decide it. Is that understood? No one takes that from me. No one."
Jeremy left without another word, pulling the door shut behind him.
Val stood at the window, one hand braced on the frame, staring out at the darkening grounds below.
The tattoo. Her hand was shaking against his jugular. The way she had looked at him through the veil and said I will not die at the hands of an animal, " as if she actually believed she had a choice in the matter.
His knuckles whitened against the window frame.
Who dared, he thought. Who dared move against me?
He didn't examine what sat underneath that question. Not yet.