BILLIONAIRES CLUB

CHAPTER 2

Reyes didn't knock. The door was unlocked exactly four minutes before he was expected, the way it always was, and he let himself in like a man who'd done this a hundred times before — because he had.

‎"Talk," he said, dropping into the chair across from Elliot without sitting down properly, more perched, ready to move. "What happened."

‎"Marcus asked about my background. Casual. Then mentioned Simon ran checks on everyone last month." Elliot kept his voice flat, clinical, the way he'd trained himself to report even when his pulse hadn't caught up yet. "Came back clean. He made a joke about it and left."

‎Reyes studied him for a second too long — the same look Marcus had given him an hour ago, except this one Elliot trusted. "Clean is what we built. Clean is what should happen."

‎"I know."

‎"Then why do you look like you're about to be sick?"

‎Elliot didn't answer right away. Because the truth wasn't about tonight — tonight had been nothing, exactly like Reyes said. The truth was four years old and lived somewhere under his ribs, and every time someone said the word background he felt it move.

‎"I'm fine," he said instead.

‎Reyes didn't push. That was the thing about him — he'd read the file, knew exactly what this case cost Elliot personally, and had decided a long time ago that some doors weren't his to open unless Elliot opened them first. "Simon's orientation is Thursday. That's the real test. He's careful in a different way than Marcus — doesn't ask questions out loud. He just watches who talks too much and who doesn't talk enough."

‎"I know how to be quiet."

‎"I know you do." Something flickered behind Reyes's eyes — not quite pity, closer to worry. "You've been quiet for four years."

‎The words sat between them. Elliot looked away first, out at the city, at all the windows lit up with lives that weren't performances.

‎"She'd have found something by now," Elliot said quietly. Not a question. Not really a statement either — just a thought that had leaked out before he could stop it.

‎Reyes didn't ask who. He never did. "Maybe. Or maybe she'd have told you to slow down and do this right, so you don't get yourself erased chasing a ghost before you get close enough to matter."

‎"I'm close."

‎"You're four years in and you've got a rich man asking about your background at midnight. That's not close, Elliot. That's exposed." Reyes stood, buttoning his jacket, all business again. "Thursday. Simon's house. You go, you smile, you talk about nothing, and you let him decide you're boring. That's the whole job right now. Not digging. Not connecting dots. Boring."

‎"And after that?"

‎"After that, we find the c***k in Marcus. He's vain, he's careless, and he likes you — that's your way in first, not Simon, not yet." Reyes moved to the door, paused with his hand on the frame, an echo of the way Marcus had stood there an hour earlier, except this pause meant something different. "You've waited four years to get this close. Don't blow it because you're impatient for an answer that isn't going anywhere tonight."

‎The door shut. Elliot sat alone in the quiet suite, the same one that had felt too small an hour ago, and let out a breath he'd been holding since 11:47 p.m.

‎Boring. He could do boring. He'd been doing boring for four years, smiling at men who'd built empires on other people's disappearances, playing a version of himself so hollowed-out and careful it barely felt like lying anymore.

‎But somewhere in this city, or maybe nowhere in this city at all, was the answer to the only question that had ever really mattered to him — and Thursday, whether Reyes liked it or not, Elliot intended to get one step closer to it.

‎He picked up his phone one more time before bed, thumb hovering over a contact list that hadn't changed in four years, still built around the absence of one name he refused to delete.

‎Then he set it down, turned off the light, and let the city keep its secrets one more night.

‎