Alexander POV
The mask sat on my desk like an accusation.
I turned it over in my hands, running my thumb along the inside edge of the leather where the stitching was still clean, and then I set it face-up next to the glass and reached for the scotch. The study was quiet. Everything on this floor was always—no footsteps, no voices from the floors below, just the low hum of the city beyond the window and the sound of my own breathing, which I kept measured on principle.
I poured two fingers and didn't drink yet.
She hadn't called security. I'd checked twice—once from the car, where I'd sat with the phone in my hand and the partition up, so my driver wouldn't see my expression, and again from the corridor camera feed the moment I'd reached this floor. The alert queue was completely empty.
