Chapter 10: The Curator'sGame
“Precisely.” He moved behind her. She heard the soft click of the study door shutting fully. The party noise vanished, replaced by the low hum of the climate control and the pounding of her own blood.
His hand settled on her back, between her shoulder blades. The touch was heavy. It slid down, following the deep plunge of the dress’s back, his palm hot and dry against her skin. It didn’t stop at her waist. It continued, over the curve of her hip, and came to rest, squarely, possessively, on her ass. He squeezed, once, testing the firm muscle beneath the silk.
Abbie froze. A cold, clear fury washed through her, so potent it threatened to shatter her cover. She forced her muscles to relax, forced a slow, deliberate turn within his grasp so she was facing him, an amused eyebrow arched. It was the most difficult performance of her life.
“Forward, aren’t we?” she said, her voice a lazy drawl she didn’t recognize. Her right hand, hidden by the fold of her body and the desk, found the Ethernet port. Her fingers, trained and steady, pressed the camera into the shadowed port. It clicked, secure. A green LED flickered once, invisible to all but her. The feed was live.
He pulled her close.
Her back met his chest, the hard edge of his tuxedo buttons pressing through the silk. Then she felt the other, more insistent pressure against her, the rigid line of his arousal grinding into the cleft of her ass through their clothes.
His lips found the junction of her neck and shoulder, his mouth hot and surprisingly soft. A low, involuntary sound escaped her throat—a moan of pure frustration, not desire, as her mind screamed at the violation. His fingers found the hidden zipper at the side of the emerald silk, and with a smooth, practiced pull, he began to undo it.
The dress loosened, sliding off one shoulder. His kisses trailed down the exposed line of her spine, each one a brand against her skin. The air in the study felt thick, suffocating, the scent of his cologne and old paper mixing unpleasantly.
A terrible heat pooled in her stomach, a traitorous physical response to the attention. To her shock and horror, her mind fractured: one part recoiling from his touch, another part vividly conjuring the memory of Milo’s hands on her in the kitchen, his stubble rough against her neck. She wished, with a desperation that sickened her, that it was Milo ravishing her body instead.
Across the city, Milo leaned forward on his couch, his bandaged shoulder protesting. The feed from the study camera was crystal clear on his laptop. He watched the Curator’s hands on the exposed skin of Abbie’s back, the dress pooling at her waist. A slow, cold smile spread across his face. “This is fun,” he murmured to the empty apartment, taking a sip of bourbon.
Adam’s hands slid around to her front, cupping her breasts through the lace of her bra. He fumbled with the clasp at the back, his breath ragged in her ear. “Exquisite,” he muttered, his fingers clumsily searching for the hook.
A sharp, polite knock echoed through the study door.
They both froze. The door pushed open just a crack, and a young waiter in a white jacket peered in, his face pale. “Mr. Schofield? Your presence is requested downstairs. It’s the mayor’s aide, sir. It appears urgent.”
Adam scowled, his hands dropping from her body like stones. Abbie jerked away, pulling the silk of her dress up over her shoulders with trembling hands, a wave of dizzying relief washing through her so forcefully she nearly gasped.
“For god’s sake,” Adam grumbled, his voice tight with frustration as he adjusted his tuxedo jacket. He shot a lingering, heated look at Abbie. “This is regrettable. Duty calls, it seems.” He straightened his cuffs, the charming host mask sliding back into place. “We should continue this another time."
Abbie just nodded, not trusting her voice, her fingers finally finding the side zipper and pulling it up with a shaky yank.
From his apartment, Milo groaned, slumping back against the cushions. He stared at the frozen image on his screen—Abbie looking flustered, the Curator turning away. “Just when things were getting interesting,” he muttered, snapping the laptop shut with a sharp clack.
Abbie didn’t wait for an escort. She slipped out of the study, down the back staircase, and into the cool night air. The emerald dress felt like a contaminated skin now. She drove straight to Milo’s building, the city lights blurring through unshed tears of anger and shame.
She let herself in with the key he’d given her after the docks. He was still on the couch, the bourbon bottle lower than before. “Camera’s live,” she said, her voice flat and tired. She tossed her clutch onto the chair. “Feed is active. It’s done.”
Milo looked her over, the torn expression on her young face, the smudged makeup. “Good,” he said, his gray eyes missing nothing.
“You played it perfectly.” The words hung in the air between them, sterile and professional. They didn’t touch the cold, crawling feeling still on her skin. She stood rooted in the center of his living room, the emerald silk a glaring lie under the harsh overhead light.
He watched her for a long moment, seeing the slight tremor in her hands, the way her eyes were too wide, fixed on nothing. The triumph of the live feed faded behind a more immediate calculation. He set his bourbon glass down with a soft click.
“Hey,” he said, his voice dropping, losing its edge. He pushed himself up from the couch, a faint wince tugging at his bandaged shoulder. He didn’t approach her like a predator now. He moved slowly, giving her space to bolt. When he stopped in front of her, he didn’t touch her. “Abbie. Look at me.”
She dragged her gaze up to his. The bravado was gone. In its place was a raw, stunned humiliation that made her look even younger than nineteen.
“He touched you,” Milo stated, not a question. His gray eyes were steady, holding hers. “Where you didn’t want to be touched.”
A short, sharp breath escaped her, almost a laugh. “That’s one way to put it.” Her voice was thin. “It was part of the job. I handled it.”
“You handled it,” he echoed softly. Then he did reach out. One hand, calloused and warm, came up to cradle the side of her face, his thumb brushing just beneath her eye where her makeup had smudged. The gesture was startling in its tenderness. “And now the job is over. You’re shaking.”
She was. A full-body tremor she hadn’t even noticed until he said it. The adrenaline was gone, leaving a hollow, rattled cavity behind. Her composure cracked. A single hot tear broke free, tracing a path through the foundation on her cheek.
“I just stood there,” she whispered, the confession torn from her. “I let him. I even… for a second, I…”
“You survived,” he cut in, his voice firm but not unkind. His other hand came up, framing her face, forcing her to hold his gaze. “You got the camera planted. You got out. That’s all that matters. The rest is just noise.” He pulled her gently toward him, guiding her head to rest against his good shoulder. His chin settled on the top of her head. “Breathe. Just breathe.”
She stiffened for a heartbeat, then melted into him. Her fists unclenched, clutching at the soft fabric of his shirt. The smell of him—bourbon, cheap soap, the faint metallic hint of the antiseptic on his bandage—was anchoringly real. It overwrote the memory of the Curator’s cologne. His heart beat a slow, steady rhythm against her ear.
He held her like that, not speaking, just letting the solid silence of the apartment wrap around them. His hand moved in slow circles on her back, over the silk where the other man’s hands had been. It was a reclaiming. A quiet erasure.
“He’s a disgusting old man,” Milo murmured into her hair after a while, his voice a low vibration in his chest. “And we’re going to bury him. You and me. That camera is the first shovel.”
She nodded against his shoulder, the helpless feeling slowly receding, replaced by a weary, focused anger. He was right. They would.
She took a deeper, steadier breath. The warmth of his body and the rhythm of his heart began to calm the last tremors in her limbs. The shame was receding, burned away by a new, clarifying resolve. They would bury him.
A cold calculation clicked into place behind his gray eyes. This was the perfect time. She was off-balance, emotionally raw, and profoundly grateful for his comfort. The trust was a palpable, warm thing in the space between them.
It would be so easy to twist it, to convert her gratitude into a more binding, physical loyalty. He felt the moment shift, the comfort in his arms curdling into something heavier, a static charge in the quiet room. His hand, still rubbing her back, slowed its circles.
His touch changed. It trailed down the ridge of her spine, deliberate and slow, until his palm settled on the curve of her ass. He squeezed, not like the Curator’s clinical grab, but with a possessive familiarity that made her breath hitch. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, his lips finding her skin, his stubble a welcome abrasion that scrubbed away the memory of the other man’s smoother, older face.
Abbie froze for a different reason now. A wave of confused heat washed through the lingering chill. She let out a soft, shaky laugh, more nerves than amusement, and tilted her head to give him better access. “Pretty bold for a guy with a bullet hole,” she murmured, her voice thick.
“Adrenaline’s a hell of a painkiller,” he muttered against her throat, his other arm tightening around her waist. In one fluid motion, he lifted her. Her legs wrapped around his hips instinctively, her silk dress riding up, and she laughed again, a real sound this time, startled and bright, burying her face in his neck as he carried her the short distance to his unmade bed.
He laid her down amidst the tangled sheets, following her down, his weight pinning her in a way that felt nothing like a trap. He kissed her neck, her jaw, finally her mouth, and the kiss was deep and searching, wiping her mind clean of everything but the taste of bourbon and the sharp, grounding pain in his shoulder as she clutched at him. She moaned into his mouth, a sound of pure, surrendering release.
His hands worked quickly, pushing the straps of the emerald dress down, finding the zipper he’d almost undone for another man. He peeled the silk away from her skin, discarding it on the floor. Her bra followed, a simple clasp yielding to his impatient fingers. He took a nipple into his mouth, his tongue circling the tight peak, and she gasped, her back arching off the mattress.
The feeling was a lightning bolt of pure sensation, erasing the last ghost of the study. Here was a different kind of hunger, one that demanded her participation, her own greed. She moaned, her fingers tangling in his salt-and-pepper hair, as he worshiped her chest. The thought flickered, absurd and hot—this stranger, this man twice her age, was mapping her body with a focused intensity the boys in her anthropology class never could dream of.
They moved together in a fierce, wordless rhythm. It wasn’t gentle. It was a claiming, a collision of need and strategy and raw, physical catharsis. The headboard knocked a dull, consistent beat against the wall. Her nails scored his back. His mouth found hers again, swallowing her cries. When he finally shuddered, burying himself deep with a ragged groan, she clung to him, feeling the frantic pulse within her own body slowly subside.
Afterward, he rolled to his side, taking her with him, keeping her close in the humid, dark quiet. Her breathing evened out into the deep, trusting rhythms of sleep, one arm flung over his waist. Milo stayed awake, propped on an elbow. He watched the streetlights paint soft bars across her bare back.
He leaned down and pressed a kiss to the knob of her spine, then another lower down, his mind already clicking forward, past the warmth of her skin and the perfect curve of her ass under his resting hand. The camera was live. The data was streaming. She was fully, beautifully compromised. He had his source, his story, and his distraction, all tangled together in his sheets.
The next move was his alone. He waited until her breathing was deepest, then extracted himself from the tangle of her limbs with practiced care. She murmured, turning into the warmth his body left behind, but didn’t wake. He pulled on a pair of sweats and padded silently to the living room, the hardwood cold under his feet.
The laptop glowed in the dark. He opened the encrypted drive labeled ‘MANTIS’ and scrolled past the physical descriptors, the voice analysis, the notes on her probable age and background. His fingers hovered over the keys. He added a new subheading: PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE / POST-INTIMACY OBSERVATIONS.
He typed quickly, clinically. Exhibits high degree of physical trust post-coitus. Sleeps deeply. Responsive to tactile affirmation, suggests latent need for validation perhaps linked to dual-identity stress. Gratitude from previous intervention (dockside) appears to have solidified emotional attachment. Leverage point: guilt over perceived failure (gala) mixed with gratitude for absolution. Recommend continued cycle of minor crisis followed by personal comfort.
He saved the file. On another screen, the raw data feed from the study camera scrolled—encrypted financial manifests, shipping codes, a staggering list of shell corporations. It was gold. But the human element beside him was the real key. He muted the laptop and went back to bed.
The gray light of Seattle morning was leaching around the blinds when she stirred. He was already awake, propped on an elbow, tracing the line of her spine with his eyes. He leaned down and pressed his lips to the nape of her neck, feeling her shiver awake.
“Mmm.” Her voice was sleep-rough. She stretched, the sheet falling to her waist. “You’re like a furnace.”
“Comes with the territory,” he murmured, kissing a path down her vertebrae. His mind, however, was elsewhere. The skin under his lips was smooth, unmarked. Heather had always been louder, more performative, with a blonde’s curated enthusiasm. Rachel, the redhead from the community college story last year, had been all nervous energy and startling inhibition, clutching at him like he was a life raft. But this girl… she was a different animal. There was a fierce, almost startled intensity to her, a physical vocabulary that was both skilled and instinctively wild. It was unforgettable.
“Good stamina for an old man,” she chuckled, tilting her head to give him better access to her shoulder.
He nipped at her skin, making her gasp-laugh. “Old man? I’m in my prime, kid. And you’re a hell of a lay for a superhero.” He kissed the dip at the small of her back. “I particularly enjoyed you screaming my name. The neighbors probably think I’m watching something graphic.”
She flushed, a delightful pink spreading across her cheeks and chest, and playfully swatted his arm. “I did not scream. It was a… emphatic utterance.”
“Call it what you want.” He kept kissing down the swell of her hip, his hands smoothing over her thighs. “It was music. Now, about our friend the Curator.” His voice lost its teasing edge, turning businesslike even as his mouth traveled back up her spine. “The data’s parsing. He’s moving something big. The manifests point to a consolidated shipment, all his disparate little ventures funneling into one container. It’s cleanup or escalation.”
She rolled onto her back to look at him, the sheet pooling. The playful glint was gone from her eyes, replaced by a sharp focus. “Where?”
“Terminal 18. Dock 3. The Northern Star. It sails in forty-eight hours.” He brushed a strand of hair from her forehead. “We need to be on that ship before it leaves territorial waters. Get visual confirmation, plant trackers. Once it’s in international waters, our leverage vanishes.”
“We go in hard and fast. Mantis style.” Her jaw was set, the girl from moments ago fully receding behind the hero’s resolve.
“Mantis style,” he agreed, his hand resting on her hip. “But smarter this time. No drills. We use the internal access from the blueprints your camera helped confirm. In and out, ghosts.”
She nodded, the plan solidifying between them in the quiet room. After a moment, she sighed. “I need coffee. And you probably need more painkillers.” She slipped out from under the sheets, the morning light catching the sleek lines of her body as she stood.
As she turned toward the kitchen, he reached out and gave her ass a quick, stinging slap. The sound was crisp in the quiet.
She jumped, a small, startled yelp escaping her. She shot a mock glare over her shoulder, but a secret, undeniable thrill warmed her stomach. She liked it. The casual claim of it, the normalcy. “Jerk,” she said, without any heat, and disappeared into the other room.
Milo waited for the sound of the grinder. Then he pulled the laptop onto his knees. Opening a blank document, he began to type with swift, certain strokes.
He never used her real name. He didn’t need to. The article was a strong enough weapon. It was the ultimate insurance policy. Once they get the details from the Nothern Star, that would be enough for his next pultizer.
The coffee machine gurgled. The laptop lid closed with a soft click just as she walked back in, carrying two steaming mugs. She was wearing his discarded t-shirt, her hair a messy dark halo.
“Here,” she said, handing him a cup. “Black, like your soul.”
He took it, his smile not reaching his eyes. “You know me so well.”
He took a sip, the bitter liquid scalding his tongue. “We move tonight. The Star’s doing final load-out. Security will be focused on the cargo, not the crew accesses.”
Abbie perched on the edge of the bed, the t-shirt riding up her thighs. “You’re in no shape for a dockside scramble.”
“I’ll be the eyes in the van,” he said, tapping his temple. “You’ll be the hands and feet. We use the schematics from the Curator’s own files. His arrogance is our skeleton key.”
She watched him over the rim of her mug, the steam fogging her glasses for a moment before she took them off. Without them, her face looked even younger, more open. The memory of the gala, of his hands on her in the study, seemed to flicker behind her eyes. Then it was gone, replaced by a steely resolve that tightened her jaw. “I want him, Milo. Not just his operation. Him.”
“You’ll get him.” He set his coffee down and reached for her, his fingers brushing a stray hair from her cheek. The gesture was surprisingly gentle. “But we do this clean. No heroics. Just evidence.”
She turned her face into his palm, her eyes closing. The trust was absolute, a terrifying thing to witness. When she opened them, they were shining. “Okay.”
He leaned in then, and she met him halfway. The kiss wasn’t like the frantic, hungry ones from the night before. It was deep, searching, and painfully sincere on her part. She poured everything into it—the fear from the docks, the violation of the gala, the dizzying hope he’d kindled in her. Her fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, holding on as if he were the only solid thing in a tilting world.
Milo returned the kiss, his good arm pulling her closer. But his gray eyes, open and watching her lost expression, were coldly clear. This is too easy, he mused against her mouth, the thought clinical and detached. She was handing him her loyalty on a silver platter, wrapped in teenage infatuation and superhero idealism. He deepened the kiss anyway, because the performance sold the lie.
When they finally broke apart, breathless, she rested her forehead against his. “What happens after?” she whispered. “After the Star, after he’s gone?”
He brushed his thumb across her lower lip, his smirk hidden by the proximity. “After?” he said, his voice a low rasp. “I was thinking we keep doing this. You, me. No masks. Well, maybe sometimes.” He let the suggestion hang, felt her shiver. “I’m not done with you yet, Abbie Zhao.”
The sound of her real name, spoken in his bed, felt like a promise. She believed it. “Me either,” she breathed, sealing her own fate with two whispered words.
The Northern Star was a hulking silhouette against the bruised purple of the Seattle night, its running lights smearing yellow streaks on the oily water. From the rented van two blocks over, Milo watched thermal signatures move across his laptop screen. “Two on the main deck, fore and aft. One in the bridge. Your entry point is clear. Go.”
Abbie, a compact shadow in her full Mantis suit, slipped from the passenger door and melted into the maze of containers. She moved with a liquid grace, a spectre in the sodium-lit fog. The access hatch, precisely where the schematics promised, was unguarded. She slid into the ship’s belly.
The interior was a throat of groaning metal and the smell of diesel and stale brine. Milo’s voice was a ghost in her ear. “Turn left at the next junction. The hold you want is three levels down. They’re stacking the consolidated container now.”
She descended narrow ladders, her modified senses parsing the distant clangs and shouts. The hold was cavernous, lit by harsh work lights. The container sat alone in the center, its seals fresh. Four men in dockworker gear, but moving with a tactical precision that betrayed them, stood guard.
“Thermals show four hostiles,” Milo confirmed, his voice tight. “You need a diversion.”
Abbie’s smile was invisible behind the mask. She palmed a small, magnetic charge from her belt. With a silent throw, it stuck to a steel support beam thirty feet from the guards. She ducked behind a pallet of machinery parts.
The charge emitted a short, piercing shriek—the sound of metal shearing—then died. The four men snapped toward the noise, weapons sliding from under their jackets. “Check it,” one barked.
As two peeled away, Abbie moved. She took the first guard from behind, a precise strike to the carotid that dropped him silently. The second turned, his pistol rising, but her leg swept his knees out before his finger found the trigger. The crack of his head against the deck plating was sickeningly loud.
“Contact!” someone yelled.
Gunfire erupted, deafening in the metal space. Rounds sparked off the container behind her. She rolled, came up behind a forklift, and fired her grapple. It hooked a gantry above. She launched upwards, swinging over their heads as bullets tore through the air where she’d been.
Landing behind the remaining two, she was a whirlwind of calculated violence. An elbow to a throat, a kick to a knee that bent the wrong way with a wet pop. The last man fumbled for a radio. She snatched it from his grip and drove it into his temple. He folded.
Silence, broken only by the hum of the ship’s engines and the moaning of the man with the shattered knee. “Clear,” she breathed into her mic.
“Hurry,” Milo’s voice crackled. “The bridge just went active. They heard the party.”
She planted the trackers—one on the container, two at strategic points in the hold. She was snapping photos with her mask’s optics when a new voice, smooth and furious, cut through the hold.
“A costumed pest. How theatrical.”
The Curator stood at the hold entrance, flanked by two larger men with the dead-eyed look of professional muscle. He wore a tailored overcoat, unruffled. In his hand was not a gun, but a small, sleek remote.
“The trackers are redundant,” he said, pressing a button. A green light on the container blinked to red. “Signal jammer. Localized. Your friend in the van is seeing static.”
Abbie dropped into a fighting stance. “It’s over, Schofield. The data’s already out.”
“Is it?” He smiled, a thin, cruel line. “I think you’re bluffing. I think you’re a child playing dress-up who’s about to learn a very final lesson.” He nodded to his men. “Break her. Keep the suit intact. I’m curious about the tech.”
The two men advanced. They were bigger than the others, slower, but they moved in tandem, cutting off her angles. She was faster, landing sharp blows on ribs and joints, but their bulk absorbed the punishment. One caught her a glancing blow on the shoulder that sent numbness shooting down her arm.
She fought with a desperate, silent fury. This was for the gala, for his hands on her, for every life his shipments had ruined. She disabled one with a well-placed kick to the kneecap, hearing it shatter. The other grabbed her from behind, his thick arms locking around her torso, squeezing the air from her lungs.
The Curator watched, his head tilted as if observing an unsatisfactory exhibit. “Disappointing.”
Abbie drove her head back, felt cartilage crunch against the back of her skull. The grip loosened. She drove an elbow into his solar plexus, twisted, and threw him over her shoulder. He landed hard, gasping.
She turned, panting, to face Schofield. But he was gone. The hold entrance was empty.
“He’s running!” she yelled, sprinting after him. She burst onto the main deck, the wet wind slapping her mask. She saw his figure, a dark streak, already halfway down the gangway to the dock.
She gave chase, leaping from the ship’s rail, her grapple finding purchase on a crane. She swung in a wide, screaming arc, landing in a roll that brought her to her feet just as the Curator slid into the back of a waiting black sedan.
She ran, her boots pounding the wet asphalt. The car’s tires screeched, spitting water. It accelerated toward the port gates. She pushed her body harder, lungs burning. For a second, she closed the distance, her fingertips nearly brushing the trunk lid.
Then the car’s turbo kicked in. It surged forward, weaving through the gates and disappearing into the maze of the industrial district. She skidded to a halt, doubling over, hands on her knees, gulping air as the taillights vanished into the gloom.
He was gone.
The van smelled of sweat, despair, and cheap electronics. Abbie sat in the passenger seat, her mask pulled off, head leaned against the cool window. Rain streaked the glass, distorting the distant lights of the Northern Star. Milo drove, his jaw a hard line.
“We got the trackers on,” he said, his voice flat. “Once the ship moves out of the jammer’s range, we’ll have its route. We have photos of the container, the manifest codes. It’s something.”
“He got away,” she said, the words hollow. “He looked me in the eye and he just… walked.”
Milo pulled the van over in a deserted lot overlooking the choppy, black sound. He killed the engine. The only sound was the rain on the roof and her shaky breathing. He reached across the console, his hand finding hers in the dark. His fingers were warm, solid.
“Listen to me,” he said, turning to face her. The glow from a distant streetlight cut his face into planes of shadow and light. “He didn’t win. He lost his entire shipment. His operation is exposed. The people he answers to, the ones with the real money and the real power, they don’t tolerate failure. He’s scrambling now. He’s vulnerable.”
She looked at him, her eyes glistening. “What if he disappears?”
“He won’t.” Milo squeezed her hand. “Men like him, they can’t. Their entire identity is the empire they’ve built. He’ll try to rebuild, to explain the loss to his benefactors. That’s when we hit him again. Harder.” He used his thumb to wipe a stray tear from her cheek, his touch surprisingly tender. “This was a battle, Abbie. Not the war. We bled him tonight. Next time, we go for the heart.”
She searched his face, finding only certainty there. She nodded, a slow, weary gesture, and leaned her head against his shoulder. He let her, staring out at the rain-smeared city, already plotting the next move.
Back in his apartment, the dynamic had shifted. The earlier intimacy was still there, but it was underscored now by a shared, grim focus. They sat at his small table, her suit peeled to the waist, the top half tied around her. A dark bruise was blossoming on her shoulder where the guard had struck her.
Milo gently pressed an ice pack to it, his fingers careful. “You’re going to feel that tomorrow.”
“I feel it now,” she grunted, but she didn’t pull away. She was studying the data on his laptop screen. The tracker signals were still dead, but the photos from the hold were crystal clear. “The container codes. They’re linked to a shell corporation in Macau.”
“Which is linked to another in Zurich,” Milo said, moving to sit beside her. He pulled up a complex web of financial transactions. “And that one is owned by a holding company called Prometheus Group. Very private. Very nasty.”
“His benefactors.”
“The ones he has to answer to for a botched twenty-million-dollar shipment.” Milo zoomed in on a logo. “We don’t go after the Curator directly next. We follow the money. We find the pressure point in Prometheus, and we squeeze. When they call him to account, that’s when we’ll be listening.”
Abbie looked from the screen to him, the glow painting her face in pale blue. “How do we do that?”
Milo leaned back, a slow, predatory smile spreading across his face. He tapped a name on the screen: a board member, a woman based in Seattle. “We find a new source. Someone on the inside. Everyone has a weakness.” He looked at her, his gray eyes reflecting the cold light of the data. “We make our final move.”