By the time Bastion’s elevator hit street level, the city was already in my hands.


    I don’t kill men first thing. I move their mornings. It costs them longer.


    Step one was simple: duplicate and poison the ess he didn’t deserve. The keycard he’d been using, by noon had a silent error. The real doors would still open; his wouldn’t. It would take him exactly three humiliations to realize it was personal.


    Step two, the elevator. I tied a loop to the lobby call button that sent him to Floor 42 for one heartbeat on every ascent—nothing obvious, just a ghost stop. A three-minute leak of time. It would make him miss coffee by seconds, meetings by inches.


    Step three, mornings. Emilia wakes quiet. Mornings are sacred for our girl. No voices allowed. I reassigned the concierge on her floor, reced the security on the east stairwell, reprogrammed the housekeeping route so no cart rolled past her door before nine. If he liked to hover, he’d hover into empty air.


    I didn’t tell her. She needed sleep, not systems.


    Rome called. I let it ring twice, then answered.


    “You’re up early,” he said, voice rough like he’d spent the night enforcing the club’s snd streets.


    “Didn’t sleep,” I said


    “Ports are bleeding,” he said. “You want me or you?”


    “Bastion’s already en route. You get the trucks. I’ll get the paper.”


    “Copy.” He paused. “You’re angry.”


    “I am.”


    “Does Bastion know?”


    I didn’t answer.


    He grunted, which for Rome is a nod you can hear. “Call if you need bones broken.”


    “Right now. I need silence,” I ended the call.


    The board lit up across my screens—ess logs, cameras, staff rosters.


    I dragged strings between timestamps until a picture formed, where he’d stood, who had looked past him, who hadn’t. Three staffers paused too long by her hallwayst week. One had that twitchy habit of smoothing her skirt when she lies. One had a boyfriend with debt. One was bored.


    I pulled their contracts. Moved two to day-shift. Sent the bored one home with pay and a red g on her file that would make other buildings say no. She’d think it was her idea to leave. It was mine.


    She drinks her coffee at fifty-six degrees because anything hotter makes her stomach hurt. Anyone who changes that gets reced.


    I advanced our machine start time by four minutes and set a reminder to myself to have Bastion toss the first cup if she reached for it distracted tomorrow. He forgets these things, then hates himself for forgetting. I don’t forget.


    He—ric; fine, I’ll name him once on a private screen—had bragged about dinner, about powder on the table like it was a centerpiece.


    I traced his schedule with hers. He’d been near three of her public events in thest two weeks, one brunch, one gallery opening, one “private tasting” that wasn’t.


    None of those contact points existed in official logs. Men like him like to be “off-book” because it feels like power.


    All off-book routes run through doors someone else owns. Today that someone else was me.


    I mirrored his phone for metadata only. Consent is a line. He didn’t get consent, so I didn’t bother worrying about his. I took his rhythms instead, the times he checked, the times he lied about checking. He liked to text at 07:12 and 19:41. He liked to call at 22:03. Cute. The kind of clockwork that begs for a wrench.


    At 07:09 I pushed a courier alert to his screen from a restaurant he tries to impress people with. A “your table is avable now” bluff. He bit. He always would. Men who stand on empty floors love to be seen on busy ones.


    He left the lobby at 07:11 and missed her elevator by twenty seconds. She didn’t see him; she saw the jacket I’d sent—light weight she’d actually keep on.


    I watched her walk to the car. Headache threshold reading low—good. She got in. The driver knew not to speak to her before she wanted words. He didn’t. Good.


    I didn’t look at her face. Looking when I’m working makes me stupid.


    At 08:30, I cut the building’s lobby music by half and raised the ss tint by seven degrees. She doesn’t like re before ten. No one noticed the change; they never do. They just behave better when the world fits them.


    Bastion texted me a photo from the tower corridor—empty. He’d left nothing behind, like I asked.<fn1c3a> ??? ????? ???????s ??? ?????s??? ?? f?ndnovel</fn1c3a>


    He doesn’t say much when he does what he promises. The message said Measured. Move him.I sent back Already moving.


    By noon, his keycard failed in front of a junior heir he wanted to impress. Heughed it off; the heir didn’t. I saw his embarrassment. He would go looking for the source of that feeling. He wouldn’t find me.


    By two, I pushed a small scheduling error into his calendar that had him double-booked with a handler he fears and a friend he uses. He chose the friend. The handler sent three messages with clipped punctuation. He’d think the day turned on him. Days don’t turn. People do.


    At three, I called a doctor. Not the ones dynasty uses to carve girls into numbers. Ours. The one who knows how to say “rest” without making it sound like failure. I had him hold a slot for a headache she might not have. We n for the worst; we never speak it aloud.


    I checked her cameras, then rerouted motion alerts for that corridor directly to my phone. They wouldn’t ping staff anymore. They would ping me. I don’t mind being the only one who hears it.


    The elevator ghost-stop reported a 7% spike in his heart rate every time it hit 42. By early evening, he’d decide the building was broken. It wasn’t. He was.


    I ordered dinner delivery to the restaurant we own because it saves time to ept the truth of ownership. I had them put the wine Bastion likes on the table and the lighter one she can actually drink without getting dizzy. No smoke allowed; Bastion would light anyway. I gged the host to look away.


    Rome updated me from the docks: three men in concrete, one runner, manifests recovered from a phone he threw toote. Ports bleed louder. They demand Bastion’s version of conversation. Good. He needed somewhere to put his hands that wasn’t a throat I couldn’t let him crush.


    I set onest thing before I shut the screens: Veil alerts for a single ount. Not to stalk. To know when the day finally gave us back what it stole.


    If she posted, I wanted the vibration to find Bastion’s pocket.


    At 19:03, Bastion texted: Ports.


    I replied: Feed them to the cement. When your phone buzzes, look.


    By 19:41, the alert I built for a man I won’t name went off again—predictable. He was somewhere he thought important, saying words he thought mattered. I muted him.


    I put on a suit that said everything I needed without talking and went to dinner.


    We would sit her between us. We would tell her the truth. We would listen to hers.


    After, we would take her home.


    Between now and then. While Bastion made the city quiet the way only he can, I would make sure the only sound he heard was the one we both live for: her, choosing us, even when she didn’t say it out loud.


    When the elevator doors opened, I set thest automation: if she posted, route the buzz straight through the noise, past concrete and trucks, to the exact pocket where my twin keeps his phone when his hands are bleeding.