The watchfulness in Lucien’s eyes was a new kind of lock. It did not click shut with a sound you could hear. It just hovered in the air, waiting, like a held breath. Ziva felt it every time she moved through the penthouse, a subtle pressure against her skin, like she was walking through a quiet, invisible web. She kept her face smooth, her movements calm and predictable. She watered the fragile white orchids he liked in the corner. She folded her sweaters in the precise, flat way he preferred, stacking them like neat, soft bricks. She was the perfect, beige background of his life, silent and unchanging.
But inside her mind, she was a cartographer. She was mapping a new city, street by secret street.
Her trips to St. Brigid’s became more purposeful. She would work with Eliana until her mu
