Artifice - Man x Man - Book Six

Chapter 27

Giving her a stern look, he snags her gun, forcing her to lower to stop drawing attention as the room grows increasingly quieter. "Keep your voice down. I had to do it, if I didn't, then they would have known I killed Anuetta. I was hoping to make it look like a suicide; there was no way she was going to keep her position in court after Nic rose to power anyways.

Of the two, it felt like Mother would be more angry if Anuetta ended up living. But there was no way Naptalion would have pardoned me, and unfortunately, I was right. The bastard took the first opportunity to blame me."

"French bitch." Marisol spits on the ground and shakes her head at him, rolling her eyes in a mirror of his dramatics. "You're a real piece of work."

"How was I supposed to know a deal with Mother meant killing Anuetta?"

"Killing her, not fucking her!" Marisol spits.

Verando flinches, accepting defeat. "He's never going to forgive me."

"Good. You deserve to be alone." 

An alarm goes off, and the pair jumps, ready for the attack. Collectively, the workers stand and begin leaving in a somewhat orderly fashion. Marisol perks, taking advantage of the situation to encourage the mass exit. "Alright! Everyone leaves; time to go home, people, gas leak!"

"Oh! A gas leak!"
"Isn't that the fire alarm?"
"These officials get scarier looking every day..."

"Quickly, please, lest you wish to perish." Verando motions to a suspicious-looking man who eyes them just a bit too close. He hurries out, and Marisol thumps the man once more.

"Shut up. You sound like you're from medieval times." She demonstrates that he should point out where to go as Marcello wades in through the people to get to them. "Good work, that was smart thinking."

"I know. I am that good." He grins and turns his attention to the directory overhead. "Looks like the elevators are that way. I'm going up to the roof to begin securing it. I want to set up a perimeter. You two stay down here and keep traffic moving; we can't afford any security delays; we only get one shot at this. " 

Rushing over the elevators, he disappears into the crowd like a proper special operative. The man was a godsend; between his military training and general sensible nature, it was nice to have one native who knew what they were doing.

Seizing the opportunity, Verando slips away to the main desk, sitting in the swivel chair and shaking his head at the fact the secretary didn't even think to log out. "Artifice, are you seeing this? What type of office is this?" 

The computer shimmers, blinking multiple screens of emails, messengers, literature, and a tiny video of a dancing woman playing in the corner of the screen.

"It's called Janco. This is their corporate headquarters. It would appear it's just a publisher; they run a daily paper. Would you like me to read you one from today?"

A paper? "Like news?"

"Yes. The news."

Marisol motions with a finger across her neck for him to consider a different way to kill time, but he ignores her, taking over the mouse as he moves across the browser, inspecting what the secretary is up to. It would appear she was talking to her mother over some sort of messenger.

 "Artifice, disable security footage." The last thing they needed was someone spotting what they were doing.

"Wouldn't that be wrong? We don't own these cameras."

"They told me it was okay." He closes out the screen, scrolling through the titles of the emails.

 "I wish I knew what all of this meant."