Chapter 457

[ 1,129 words ]

Julian’s POV

Marcus didn’t knock like a man bringing good news.

He stood in the doorway of Katia’s hospital room with a folder under his arm and rain still on his coat. I knew that look. It was the same one he wore when a problem had stopped being theory and started having a face.

Katia was awake. Sitting up. Pale, bruised along one side of her collarbone, but sharp-eyed in the way that meant she had already decided she was done being a patient.

“Tell us,” she said before I could.

Marcus glanced at me, and I nodded.

He closed the door.

“Someone was in the garage the night before the crash,” he said. “Not staff. Not a scheduled service. The main camera on the east bay was looped for eleven minutes. The secondary camera still caught a partial. A man in dark work clothes. He knew where the blind spots were. He went straight to your car, Julian. Not hers p>

The room went very still.

“Name,” I said.

Marcus opened the folder and set a printed still on the table beside the bed. Grainy. Side angle. Enough of the jaw and the way he carried his shoulders.

“Lukas Renner,” Marcus said. “Independent contractor. Brake and performance specialist. Used to do quiet work for people who didn’t want invoices with their real names on them. He hasn’t been on any official Windsor job in six years p>

Katia leaned forward, wincing, and looked at the photo.

“Who pays him now p>

Marcus hesitated for half a second. That was enough.

“He has taken money from companies tied to Elliot,” he said. “Not directly from Elliot’s personal accounts. Through a maintenance firm that does side work for Vesper Holdings. Two payments in the last fourteen months. Both large. Both marked as diagnostic consultation p>

I felt the heat rise under my skin.

“So not Elliot’s hands,” I said. “Elliot’s orbit p>

“Yes. Close enough to smell him. Not close enough to put his signature on the work p>

Katia let out a short, humorless breath.

“Of course. He never does anything with his own fingers if he can help it p>

I picked up the photo. The man in it didn’t look like a killer. He looked like someone who knew how cars failed and how to make that failure look ordinary.

“Where is he?” I asked.

“Last known address in Queens. He hasn’t been there since the morning of the crash. Phone’s off. No card activity. He vanished the way a man vanishes when he knows the job didn’t stay clean p>

I set the photo down.

“Then we find him p>

Katia looked at me.

“You’re not going after him tonight p>

“I am p>

“Julian.” Her voice sharpened. “You just found out a man who works in Elliot’s shadow put his hands on the car I was driving. You do not walk into that half-cocked while I’m still hooked to a monitor p>

“I promised you I wouldn’t keep you in the dark,” I said. “I didn’t promise I would sit here and wait for him to disappear for good p>

Marcus stayed quiet, watching both of us.

Katia’s hand closed around my wrist.

“I am not asking you to sit. I am asking you not to make yourself the next body in a wreck because you’re angry and tired and you think speed is the same thing as control. Get him. Fine. Do it with people. Do it with a plan. Do not go alone because this feels personal p>

“It is personal p>

“I know it is.” Her eyes didn’t leave mine. “That is why I’m saying it. Personal is how they want you. Personal makes you sloppy p>

I hated that she was right.

Marcus cleared his throat.

“I already have two men sitting on the Queens address and another watching a garage Renner used last year. If he surfaces, we’ll know. What I need from you is whether we pull him in quiet or we start squeezing the people who paid him p>

“Both,” I said.

Katia’s fingers tightened.

“Julian p>

I looked at her again. The bruise on her collarbone. The small curve of her stomach under the blanket. The fact that she had woken up in this room because someone wanted me dead and she had taken my keys after breakfast.

“I hear you,” I said. “I won’t go alone. But I am not leaving this until morning just because it would be more comfortable p>

She studied my face for a long moment, then nodded once.

“Then you take Marcus. You take whoever else you trust. And you call me the second you have him. Not after. The second p>

“I will p>

Marcus closed the folder.

“There’s one more thing,” he said. “Renner did similar work decades ago. Not under that name. Under a shop that no longer exists. The method matches the old crash closely enough that I don’t think this was a copy. I think it was the same school of work. Same hands, or hands trained by the same person p>

The air in my chest went thin.

“You’re saying the man who touched my car may have been near my parents’ car p>

“I’m saying I can’t prove it yet. I’m also saying I don’t believe in that kind of coincidence p>

Katia looked from him to me.

“Then this isn’t just about the rain and my drive to work,” she said. “This is the same war coming back around p>

“Yes,” I said.

I leaned down and kissed her forehead, then her mouth, careful of the split at the corner of her lip.

“Stay here. Do not get out of that bed and start making calls of your own until I get back p>

She almost smiled.

“I make no promises I can’t keep. But I will wait for your call p>

I left before I could change my mind and stay.

The city was still wet when we pulled out of the hospital garage. Night sat heavy over the streets. Marcus drove. I sat in the passenger seat with the photo of Lukas Renner on my phone and the old crash sitting in the back of my head like a second passenger.

“You think Elliot ordered it,” Marcus said.

“I think Elliot benefits from it,” I said. “I think he has spent years making sure nothing with his name on it can be traced to a body. That doesn’t make him innocent. It makes him careful p>

“Noah told me about the conversation in the office p>

I glanced at him.

“I know p>

“He’s trying to find the truth without choosing a side too early p>

“There is already a side,” I said. “My wife is in a hospital bed. The baby is alive by luck and a seatbelt. I don’t have the luxury of waiting until the story is tidy p>

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