POV: Dante
The notice of the meeting with the foundation reaches me when it's too late to stop it.
"Mandatory attendance—Seraphim review—assigned analyst: Aurora Vega."
It's not from Valcourt, but from Andrade. "Coordinated with the foundation." It's the polite way of saying, "It's already scheduled, deal with it."
I dial the internal number.
"Andrade," I say. "Who specifically requested Aurora for that table?"
He hesitates for a second.
"The email came from the foundation, sir," he replies. "It had the final list. It seemed logical to include her; she set up the cross-references."
"It was," I reply. "To review them. Not to be alone with them."
"I thought the room would always be full," he says. "The email didn't mention any separate meetings."
I hang up without scolding him further. It's not his fault.
I open internal security.
I request the camera footage from the meeting room on the thirty-first floor. Two angles, low audio. The technicians already clean up noise when they know I'm interested.
I play it back.
Aurora arrives with her laptop, serious, her hair tied back. Andrade introduces her, she projects. She begins to speak. I see the change at the table: at first, they listen to her politely; after a while, they really pay attention. Even Valcourt raises his head when she points out a pattern that had escaped us all.
It bothers me that this makes me proud.
I fast-forward.
The moment comes when the others get up. A woman in a dark suit gathers up papers. Andrade looks at his watch. Elías smiles and says something. The others leave. The door closes.
I leave the video in normal time.
Elías remains leaning on the table, close to her. He doesn't invade her space. He tilts his head, gestures slightly. Aurora remains seated, upright. She looks him straight in the eye. She doesn't look down.
I half-read her lips. Single words.
"He takes good care of you."
"Protection."
"When you choose a name..."
I clench my jaw.
At one point, he takes a tiny step toward her. He doesn't touch her. He doesn't need to. The elevator scene from that day is repeated in another box, with glass walls.
Pause.
I see two things in his face at once: distrust and curiosity. It's Valcourt's favorite combination. He sows doubt about me to position himself as "another option."
I close the file.
Sebastian appears at the door without me calling him.
"Did you see him?" he asks.
"Yes," I reply.
"Are you going to report anything?" he adds.
I shake my head.
"Everything he does is legal," I say. "To humans, he's just a donor interested in the project. The problem is what he implied."
"He talked to her about names, prices, protection," he summarizes. "He's using you as a mirror."
I know.
Later, I see her leaving the thirty-first floor.
She's carrying her coat in her hand, her backpack on her shoulder. She walks differently: not taller, but more tense. As if she had understood something she had only intuited before.
I could call her at that moment. Make her come back up to the fortieth floor. Force the conversation.
I don't.
I follow her with my eyes from the camera panel until she disappears into the lobby. Her scent lingers for a moment, captured by the floor's sensors. The system records it as data. For me, it's something else: a trace of a decision she hasn't made yet.
That night, I review reports I already know by heart.
"Omega Profile – Valcourt Priority."
They're not on our servers. They're old leaks, fragments that some clans shared with us to keep an eye on each other. The Valcourts don't write "we want docile bodies" in a PDF. They talk about "biological stabilizers," "anchors," and "long-term resources."
I know how to translate.
An omega to Valcourt is three things at once:
Biology: blood and pheromones that enhance their own bodies, give them endurance, take away some of the metallic taste of eternity.
Politics: bargaining chips, alliances disguised as marriages or contracts.
Economics: talent they can exploit in projects, companies, foundations.
Aurora fits all three points.
She comes without a clan, without a surname to protect her, with a mind that already saves their analysts work, and with a body that smells of imminent change. She is the kind of pawn they have crossed lines for more than once.
I close the file.
In another era, the solution would have been simple: mark her quickly, close ranks, warn the rest that anyone who approaches her breaks the pact.
But that era is over.
Now we play in buildings with glass rooms and formal emails. War is disguised as tenders and scholarships. Shouts are lawsuits. Marks are contracts.
I look at the draft I wrote for her a few days ago.
"There are things about who you are... that I can no longer keep to myself."
I reopen it. I delete half of it. I rewrite it.
"Aurora,
tomorrow, after your shift, I want you to come up.
This time I'm not going to talk to you as Director, but as Noir.
If you're going to choose a name, I want you to know what mine includes and what Valcourt's hides.
D."
I read the message three times.
Sending it is crossing a line. Not just with her. Also with my own clan. Talking about others in these terms is considered a declaration of intent.
But I already did that when I offered her registration.
Elías got ahead of me. He already made his own offer without saying "mark." He just embellished the idea in another way: "when you get tired of everything going through him..."
I press send.
The email goes out.
I stare at the empty inbox for a second longer than necessary. I know that when she reads it, Aurora won't see a simple "come talk."
She'll see the declaration that it is: I'm willing to lay on the table secrets that Valcourt only tells his own people. And to answer for the consequences.
Sebastián reappears.
"Already?" he asks.
"Already," I reply.
"Then the next conversation with her is going to change the rules," he says.
"The rules already changed when Valcourt said her name in an elevator," I reply. "Now we're just putting it into words."
He looks at me for a moment.
"Just don't forget something," he adds.
"To her, you and Elias are still powerful men talking about protection. If you want her to choose you, you'll have to show her how you're similar and how you're different. And accept if it's not enough."
I nod.
When he leaves, I turn off the lights and stay in the dark for a moment.
Aurora still has a choice. That makes her more valuable than any contract.
It also makes her more dangerous to me.
Because the day she says my name—or the day she rejects it—I will no longer be playing alone as Director of Noir Tower.
I will be playing as the man who decided to stand between her and a clan that has been getting what it wants for centuries. And this board, unlike Seraphim, does not allow simulations.
The next time she walks through that door, she will know. And so will I.