Page 118 of Maksym

I did not smile, though something savage in me appreciated her tone more than diplomacy permitted.

“He was controlled,” Shad said. “Which is to say, yes.”

Grace’s gaze remained fixed on the screen, but her face had gone pale beneath the returned warmth in her skin. Not bloodless. She was no longer that. But the name Lucian had reached into the room and placed old trauma at her back. I could feel it. Not the details. Not her memories. Only the bond’s low warning, the echo of terror disciplined into stillness.

I would end him. Not quickly. Not unless Grace asked it.

“Any sign he knows Grace is alive?” I asked.

Grace’s head turned toward me. I used the word deliberately. Alive. Not with me. Not turned. Not transformed. Alive.

Shad understood. “No confirmation. His questions suggest suspicion, not certainty. But I would not assume ignorance. We knew that after prolonged feeding from her, there was the possibility of him being able to have an awareness of her.”

Grace’s breath faltered.

I looked at Shad. “Remy took care of shielding her.”

“Yes,” Shad concurred. “Between your blood in her body and Remy’s protection, he only knows what he’s lost. How to find her is another story.”

What he lost. My vision sharpened.

A lesser man might have objected to the phrasing. I understood it for what it was: operational language, not moral concession. Lucian had lost access to a victim. A source. A humiliation he enjoyed preserving. A woman he had never owned and would still describe as property because evil was often lazy in its vocabulary.

Grace’s voice came quietly. “He’ll come.”

The room turned toward her.

She was not looking at any of us. Her eyes had fixed somewhere just past the monitor, not unfocused, but inwardly aligned with a conclusion.

“If he thinks I ran to you, and now you’re gone from Vegas, and your staff won’t give him answers, he’ll come,” she said. “Maybe not personally at first. But he’ll come after the thing he thinks embarrassed him.”

“Yes,” I said. “Likely.”

She nodded once. No comfort accepted. No comfort requested.

I looked back at Shad. “Continue surveillance. Every camera angle. Every ward echo. Every staff report, no matter how small.”

“Understood.”

“No confrontation with Lucian’s people unless they violate club rules or threaten staff. If they do, remove them cleanly and hold them.”

Shad’s eyes sharpened. “Alive?”

“For now.”

Bohdan’s gaze flicked to me.

Grace did not.

She kept looking at the monitor as if she might crawl through it and cross-examine the entire city of Las Vegas by force.

“Update me the minute anything changes,” I said. “If Lucian returns, I am notified before he finishes crossing the threshold.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

Shad inclined his head. “My lady. Bohdan.”

The screen went dark.