Chapter 55 Chapter 55
When he left, she looked again at the photograph. The ink on the back had smudged, but she could still read the faint outline of a second word under Trieste. It might have been a shipment. Or she meant. The uncertainty made her pulse quicken.
Downstairs, the murmur of voices swelled again, and the house resumed its measured rhythm. But something in its sound had changed—an undertone of strain, the faint static of control beginning to fray.
By eight, the house had transformed. Lights burned warm behind crystal shades; the long dining room gleamed with glass and silver. Staff moved silently, adjusting chairs and pouring wine, a choreography rehearsed to perfection.
Nina entered in the dress Elena had chosen — black silk, simple, the colour of control. The guests were already seated. Conversation softened when she appeared, replaced by the rustle of fabric and the sound of forks settling on plates.
Adrian rose. “Gentlemen. Ladies. Miss Kralj.”
Every gaze followed his. He gestured toward the empty seat at his right. “Sit.”
She did, feeling the quiet weight of scrutiny. The blond man from earlier was there, two seats down, smiling without warmth. His cufflinks bore the crest she’d seen on the documents in the library: a lion crowned in silver. Löwe & Sohn.
Adrian lifted his glass. “To continuity,” he said. “And to the illusion of peace.”
Laughter moved around the table, polite and brittle. Wine followed; crystal chimed. For a few minutes, the talk was ordinary—weather, trade, the markets—but beneath it, Nina heard the rhythm of calculation. Every question was a test, every smile a negotiation.
Halfway through the second course, the blond man spoke. “Herr Marin,” he said in German, “the Council appreciates your… stewardship. But there are concerns about consolidation. Too much power in one hand, perhaps?”
Adrian’s knife paused above his plate. “Then they should ask for more hands.”
“And if the Council prefers a replacement?”
“Then it should learn to keep its replacements alive.”
The words were soft, almost kind. The man’s smile vanished. Nobody else spoke for several heartbeats.
Then Adrian looked at Nina. “Tell me,” he said, switching to English, “what does Vienna look like to someone who’s just arrived?”
She met his gaze, steady. “Like a city pretending to sleep.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “Exactly.”
The conversation resumed, thinner now, the laughter forced. When dessert arrived, the blond man had disappeared from the table. Only his untouched glass remained, wine dark as ink.
After dinner, the guests drifted toward the library for brandy. Adrian stayed behind, watching the empty seat beside him. “You see what they wanted,” he said quietly.
“A show.”
He nodded. “And someone to blame if it goes wrong.”
“Will it?”
“It already has.”
He stood, offering his arm. “Come. You should meet the ones who matter.”
The library smelled of smoke and cedar. The men clustered near the fire, their voices low. Adrian introduced her not by name but as “the reason I’m still here.” It wasn’t a compliment, more a statement of fact.
One of the older men—white beard, eyes like polished stone—studied her. “Does she understand what you’ve built?”
“She will,” Adrian said.
“And if she decides to leave?”
“She won’t.”
The man chuckled. “You sound certain.”
“I am.”
The reply ended the subject. Yet Nina felt the eyes that followed her as she moved through the room; she could almost hear the unspoken question—who was she to sit beside Adrian Marin?
Much later, when the guests had gone and the lights dimmed, she found him alone on the terrace. The air was cool, carrying the faint scent of rain and brandy. He stood with his hands resting on the railing, looking out toward the black line of the river.
“You humiliated that man,” she said.
“He needed reminding.”
“Of what?”
“That power isn’t inherited. It’s maintained.”
She stepped closer. “You make enemies faster than you make allies.”
“They’re the same thing, eventually.”
He turned then, eyes catching the city’s distant glow. “They think I brought you here as a distraction. They don’t realise you’re the only part of this not negotiable.”
The words hung between them, intimate and terrifying. She couldn’t tell whether it was protection or possession he was offering.
When she finally went inside, the corridor lights were dimmed. Voices murmured somewhere near the rear entrance—two staff members, nervous, arguing in whispers. One phrase rose clear: Trieste shipment.
She froze. The word again.
When they noticed her, the voices stopped. The men bowed quickly and left through a service door. On the floor where they had been talking lay a small envelope, damp from the rain that had blown in. She picked it up. Inside was a shipping manifest dated two days ahead, stamped with a warehouse address near the docks and a single word in red ink: Intercept.
She tucked it into her pocket and climbed the stairs before anyone could see.
In her room, she unfolded the paper again, tracing the lines of the address. Whatever Trieste meant, it was still in motion. And somewhere behind the precision of Adrian’s empire, someone else was already moving against him.
She stood by the window, watching the lights of the city tremble on the river’s surface, and realised that for the first time since meeting him, she wasn’t sure which side she was on.
The mansion slept. From her room, Nina could hear only the soft rhythm of the rain and, beneath it, the low mechanical hum that seemed to live in the walls. The paper in her hand felt heavier than it should—a single page that could shift everything.
At dawn, she dressed quietly, in jeans and a coat borrowed from the wardrobe, and slipped out through the east hall. The guard by the service gate was half-asleep, holding a phone. She waited for a passing delivery van to cover the sound, then crossed the courtyard and vanished into the street. Behind her, the house lights flickered once—briefly, like a signal—before the city swallowed her whole.