Page 16 of The Arbiter
"Doctors, cops, forensic staff... some donors too. Dress up, drink expensive alcohol, pretend we all like each other. The theme is Masquerade night, so take a mask too."
Her expression shifts somewhere between reluctance and curiosity. She’s tempted. Not by him, but by the chance to feel normal for a few hours. To forget the scent of formalin and the weight of the note in her pocket.
Bryan grins, that easy confidence flaring up again.
"You deserve a night off, Mali."
I watch her closely. Every small movement. Every breath. A party. A room full of people. Masks. Music. Noise. Chaos. Perfect cover.
Slowly, a smile spreads across my face, the kind of smile that never reaches the eyes. Bryan thinks he just invited her out for a drink. What he actually did... was inviting me. And I won't be watching through the screen anymore.
The Grand Aurora hotel is exactly the kind of place people with money choose when they want privacy disguised as elegance.
Crystal chandeliers hang low from the ceiling of the private lounge, their golden light softened by velvet drapes pulled across the tall windows. The room smells faintly of expensive perfume, polished wood, and champagne. Music hums through hidden speakers. Something slow. Something that makes people sway without thinking.
Masks were apparently part of the theme. Not extravagant ones. Nothing theatrical. Just enough to blur identities. Half-masks made of velvet, satin, matte lacquer. Enough for comfort. Enough for anonymity. Ideal.
Getting inside was almost insultingly easy.
Hospitals survive on donations. Donors are welcomed with open arms and selective blindness. It took less than twenty minutes to create a charitable foundation that doesn't technically exist, another ten to attach a generous contribution to the hospital's development program. People stop asking questions when money is involved.
My name, a fake one, tonight sits printed neatly on the guest list beneath the title private donor. No background checks. No curiosity. Just a handshake at the door and a polite thank you for supporting medical research.
I almost laughed.
I stand near the far end of the room where the light is weakest, one shoulder resting casually against the marble column. Thebar is behind me, the dance floor in front of me, and every entrance point within my line of sight. Old habits.
My mask is simple. Matte black leather molded across the upper half of my face. Sharp lines along the cheekbones. No decoration. No shine. It hides my brows, the bridge of my nose, and the most recognizable parts of my features.
From a distance I look like another guest who prefers quiet over conversation. Up close... they would probably feel something is wrong. But no one comes close. Most people instinctively avoid men who stand too still.
I've mapped the room. Doctors. Two detectives I recognize from case reports. Several donors. A few nurses. Cops. Lucy. Bryan. And then… Her.
Madeline.
The moment she steps fully into the light, the entire room seems to lose definition around her. She doesn't belong here. Not in this room full of practiced smiles, expensive alcohol and carefully hidden corruption.
I didn't come here to attend a party. I came here to watch the woman who owns every violent thought in my head.
She looks like something that wandered in from another world by mistake.
Her hair is the first thing anyone notices. Platinum. Not blonde. Not silver. Something colder. Brighter. Long waves of pale light falling down her back like spilled moonlight. Under the chandeliers it almost glows, every strand catching gold reflections as she moves.
For a second, my fingers twitch with the familiar pulse to brush the white streak away from my own temple. Contrast. That's what she is. Standing there with that beautiful hair and those pale eyes, she looks like the answer to a question I was never meant to ask.
My gaze drifts lower. Her skin is almost translucent under the warm lights of the ballroom. Porcelain pale, dotted with faint freckles across the bridge of her nose and cheeks. Imperfections so delicate they make her look painfully real.
Like something you shouldn't touch because it might break. But I know better. I've watched her dissect bodies without flinching. I've seen those small hands open the rib cage. Angels with scalpels are still angels.
Her eyes. Ice blue. Not the soft kind. Not the warm kind. The kind that looks like frozen water under thin glass. Bright. Observant. Always calculating something behind that quiet expression. I've seen those eyes stare directly into a corpse's chest cavity like she was searching for the truth inside the bone.
Tonight they scan the room cautiously. Alert. Still haunted by me. Good.
Her black dress clings to her narrow frame in a way that makes people underestimate her. She's small, smaller than most women in the room. Her body is lean, almost fragile at first glance. But the lines of it are precise. Graceful shoulders. A slender waist. And curves that appear where you don't expect them. Soft enough to contradict the rest of her. The kind of figure that forces a man to look twice because his brain can't decide whether he's looking at innocence or temptation.
Her lips are full. Naturally pink. They move when she laughs at something Lucy says beside her, but the sound doesn't reach me across the room. And I secretly wish it did.
She tilts her head slightly while listening to someone speaking. That small movement again. The one she always does when she's thinking. My fists clenches. God really does have a twisted sense of humor. Because if anyone was designed to stand opposite me in this world, it would look exactly like her.
