My lovely betrayal

Chapter 14: Celia

The hospital in Lausanne was built into the side of a mountain, its windows facing the Alps like an offering. It was the kind of place that didn't advertise, didn't have a website, didn't appear on any map I'd ever seen. Dante's people had found it through a shell company inside a shell company, buried so deep in the financial records that it had taken me six hours just to confirm the address.

We arrived at dusk. The air was thin and cold, tasting of snow that hadn't fallen yet. Dante parked the car—an unmarked sedan, nothing that screamed mafia—at the edge of the visitors' lot and killed the engine. For a moment we just sat there, watching the building through the windshield.

It looked more like a luxury spa than a hospital. Low stone walls, manicured hedges, lights glowing warm behind curtained windows. If I hadn't known what it really was—a gilded prison for a woman who'd been asleep for fifteen years—I might have found it peaceful.

"She's on the third floor," I said, checking the floor plan I'd memorized. "Private wing. Minimal staff at night. If Vane is here, he'll be in her room."

"And if he's not?"

"Then we wait." I opened the car door. "Vane visits every month. The payment spike was nine days ago. That puts his next visit right about now."

Dante caught my wrist before I could step out. His grip was gentle but firm, his gray eyes serious in the fading light.

"If something goes wrong in there—"

"Nothing is going wrong."

"If it does." He tightened his grip, just slightly. "I need you to know that whatever happens, you're not your sister. You don't have to die to finish this."

The words hit me harder than I expected. I'd spent two years wanting to be exactly like Mira. Brave. Selfless. Willing to sacrifice everything for the mission. It had never occurred to me that there might be another way.

"I'm not planning to die," I said. "I'm too stubborn."

"I know." He released my wrist. "Let's go."

---

We entered through a service door on the east side of the building, the lock yielding to a keycard Dante had acquired from a contact in Geneva. The corridor was empty, smelling of antiseptic and fresh linen. Our footsteps made no sound on the linoleum.

The private wing was accessible only by a separate elevator, the kind that required a code. I punched in the sequence from the medical records—Celia's admission date, reversed—and the doors slid open with a soft chime.

"Subtle," Dante murmured.

"I learned from the best."

The elevator deposited us on the third floor, and the difference was immediate. The corridors were wider here, the doors spaced farther apart, the air quieter. This was where the rich came to hide their broken things. Comatose wives. Brain-damaged heirs. Sisters who'd been in boating accidents and never woke up.

Room 312 was at the end of the hall. The nameplate beside the door was blank, but the electronic lock glowed green. Unlocked. I exchanged a glance with Dante, my hand moving instinctively to the gun holstered beneath my jacket.

"Too easy," I breathed.

"Stay behind me."

I didn't argue. Dante pushed the door open and stepped inside, his body a shield between me and whatever waited in the room. I followed close, my gun drawn, my senses screaming.

The room was dim, lit only by the soft glow of medical monitors. A bed dominated the center of the space, surrounded by machines that beeped and hummed in a mechanical lullaby. In the bed, barely visible beneath a mountain of white blankets, lay a woman with pale hair and a face that might have been beautiful once, before fifteen years of sleep had worn it down to bone.

Celia Vane.

And sitting in the chair beside her bed, holding her hand like a prayer, was a man I recognized from the photograph in Mira's files.

Aldric Vane looked older than his picture. His hair had gone completely white, and his face was carved with lines that spoke of decades of running. But his eyes were sharp, dark, and utterly unsurprised as they lifted to meet mine.

"I was wondering when you'd get here," he said. "You're late."

Dante's gun was up in an instant, leveled at Vane's chest. "Don't move."

"I have no intention of moving." Vane's voice was calm, almost pleasant. "I've been sitting in this chair for three hours. I knew the moment you traced the payments. I knew the moment Rourke talked. I know everything that happens in my network, Miss Vasquez. Everything."

My finger rested on the trigger. "Then you know why I'm here."

"You're here because you think I ordered your sister's death." He turned his head slightly, and the lamplight caught the scar on his left hand—older than the others, deeper, the original brand that all the others had copied. "You're wrong."

"Rourke said—"

"Rourke said what I told him to say." Vane looked back at his sister's still face. "I've been waiting fifteen years for someone to find this place. Someone smart enough, stubborn enough, to follow the trail I left. Your sister started that trail. You finished it."

I felt the room tilt. "You wanted us to find you?"

"I wanted someone to find Celia." His voice cracked on her name, just slightly. "The network, the branded men, the empire—none of it mattered. It was all to protect her. But Webb—" He paused, and something dark flickered across his face. "Webb wanted more. He always wanted more. He's the one who killed your sister, Miss Vasquez. Not me. I tried to stop him."

Dante's gun didn't waver. "Why should we believe you?"

"Because I'm going to give you Webb." Vane reached into his jacket, slowly, and pulled out a folded piece of paper. "His location. His security detail. Every alias he's using. It's all here."

He held it out to me. I didn't take it.

"What do you want in return?"

"Nothing." Vane's dark eyes met mine. "I want to stay here with my sister. I want to die in this chair, holding her hand, when my time comes. The network is yours to dismantle. The branded men are yours to arrest or kill. I don't care anymore. I haven't cared for fifteen years."

"Then why build it? Why the scars, the loyalty oaths, the empire?"

"Because Webb and men like him don't respond to reason. They respond to power. I built the network to control them, to keep them from destroying everything I loved. It worked—until it didn't." He looked at Celia's sleeping face. "I'm tired, Miss Vasquez. I've been tired for a very long time. Take the information. Kill Webb. Finish what your sister started. Just let me stay here."

I stared at the paper in his hand. It could be a trap. It almost certainly was a trap. But the exhaustion in his voice was real, and the love in his eyes when he looked at his sister was something I recognized.

"Webb tried to kill me in Geneva," I said. "He's your second-in-command. Why would he defy you?"

"Because he's not my second-in-command anymore. He's been running his own operation for years, using my network, my resources, my name. He's the one who branded Rourke. He's the one who ordered the hit on your sister. He's the one who's been selling agents to the highest bidder while I sat in this room and pretended not to notice." Vane's voice hardened. "I'm not innocent. I built the machine. But I didn't pull the trigger on your sister. Webb did. And I'm giving you the chance to make him pay."

I reached out and took the paper. Unfolded it. Inside was an address in Zurich, a list of names, and a single sentence in neat handwriting: He'll be there tonight. Come alone, or don't come at all.

"He knows you're coming," Vane said. "He's expecting you."

"Then it's a trap."

"Of course it's a trap." Vane smiled, and for a moment I saw the ruthless don he'd been before the boating accident, before the coma, before fifteen years of sitting vigil in a dim hospital room. "But you're a Vasquez. You've been walking into traps your whole life and walking out the other side. Why stop now?"

I looked at Dante. He looked at me. The paper was heavy in my hand, the address already burned into my memory.

"If you're lying," Dante said to Vane, "I'll come back here. And your sister won't have you to hold her hand anymore."

"I'm not lying." Vane turned back to Celia, his voice dropping to a murmur. "I've been waiting for someone to finish this. I'm glad it's you."

I walked out of the room, Dante at my heels, the paper clutched in my hand. The corridor was still empty, the monitors still beeping, the mountain still silent around us.

But somewhere in Zurich, Marcus Webb was waiting. And this time, I was walking into the trap with my eyes wide open.