Page 46 of Dominion’s Collar

I can't tell Sebastien. I can't tell Margot. The collar opens doors at Dominion. The lie underneath it closes the one door that matters most: finding Claire's killer. And to do that, I'm going to need Sebastien's help.

I lock the deadbolt. Spread the files. Start mapping what Vivienne gave me against the gaps in Claire's emails.

Vivienne's descriptions—women who left without explanation, incidents handled privately—give shape to entries in Claire's notes that I've been reading as random until tonight.

They aren't random. Claire was tracking the same pattern Vivienne described for weeks before she died.

Claire was building something. Following complaints, comparing incidents, asking questions people didn't want answered. She died before she could find where those questions led.

Five years later, I'm standing in the trail she left behind.

I know how Claire's investigation ended.

I intend to make sure mine ends with the man who stopped her.

CHAPTER TEN

Sebastien

Gaudet is talking to my submissive. The temperature in my blood drops by degrees I can count.

I don't move from the booth. The scotch is in my hand, untouched, the ritual reasserting itself after last week's anomaly. Full tonight. My grip on it is tighter than the room requires.

Natalie is at the bar getting her Negroni from Renata before coming to the booth. She does this every visit—the drink first, then me. The routine is hers, and I haven't corrected it. Watching her cross the floor with a glass in her hand and the collar on her throat is a pleasure I'm not willing to sacrifice to protocol.

Gaudet got to her first. He's leaning against the bar rail, angled toward her with the ease of a man who's spent decades making people comfortable. Open posture. Warm smile. He gestures while he talks, and whatever he's saying makes Natalie tilt her head, the motion she uses when she's deciding how much to give someone.

I've watched Gaudet work a room many times since Elysium. He fills spaces gradually, thoroughly, until every surface has been touched and none of it feels deliberate. Members gravitate toward him. New members especially. He has a gift for making the unfamiliar feel navigable, and the gift is genuine.

That's the problem. I've never caught him at anything. What I have is a low-grade unease that's been running for a long time, and the unease has no evidence behind it. Instinct without data.

He doesn't touch her. Gaudet knows protocol.

Gaudet's protocol around collared submissives is immaculate. He stands close enough for warmth, far enough for propriety. The gap between is calibrated with a precision that reads as respect.

I've seen him observe the boundary with a dozen collared submissives over the years. Never a misstep.

Nobody maintains that record without effort.

The thought arrives and I hold it at arm's length because the thought is unfair. Men in this community practice collar protocol as deliberately as they practice aftercare and negotiation. Flawless protocol is evidence of discipline, not concealment. I know that. I practice it myself.

But the knowing doesn't settle it. The feeling predates reason and doesn't answer to it.

Cole mentioned a detail after the last visit. Offhand, delivered with the studied casualness Cole uses for information he considers important.

'Your girl pays a lot more attention to the street than she did a couple weeks ago.'

'How?'

'Cars. Alleys. Reflections. Who's behind her.'

Cole doesn't editorialize. He gives you the observation and lets you draw your own conclusions.

That observation has been sitting beside the ones I collected after the shibari scene. The phone she checks with targeted attention before and after every visit. The screen she closed when I approached during aftercare. The way her body stiffens when it vibrates, a tension that has nothing to do with me or the dynamic.

And the empty stool where Gaudet usually sits—she watched it. Not glanced. Watched.

I didn't ask her about it then. I'm not going to ask her about it now. Asking gives her room to construct an answer, and Natalie constructs answers from prepared materials, reinforced against pressure. What I'm going to do is watch, which is what I do.