Chapter 297: Where She Cannot Log Out
Katherine arranged a flight for the following evening, after Martin finished work.
Her assistant sent Martin the ticket, directions to a VIP arrivals lounge, and enough instructions to make him read the whole message three times before leaving his studio apartment. He spent most of the flight wondering how to greet Katherine when their first meeting in person would take them straight to Cassandra’s penthouse.
Katherine had made him call her Mommy during their private call, then sent him a photograph meant for no one else. Since learning who she really was, he had watched her movies and spent hours beside Crimson Halo in the game, yet they had never shared the same room.
The moment he saw her waiting, every greeting he had considered during the flight went straight out of his head.
She stood inside the quiet lounge in a fitted dark coat, her long red hair swept over one shoulder with the ends styled into the elegant drill curls he recognized. Oversized glasses and a hat pulled low obscured most of her face, but Martin had seen her on too many billboards and magazine covers for the disguise to fool him.
Her orange eyes found him the moment he entered. Two members of her security team waited near the private exit while she crossed the lounge alone, her measured pace quickening over the last few steps.
Martin forgot why they were there until Katherine stopped in front of him.
"Katherine."
Katherine’s smile widened. "I’m glad you recognized me without another lesson." She looked him over openly, and Martin straightened beneath her attention. "You look handsome."
He tugged once at his jacket. "I spent half the flight wondering whether I’d dressed for meeting you or confronting Cassandra."
"Tonight, you’re meeting me first. And I appreciate the effort."
Katherine opened her arms. Martin hesitated, caught off guard, then stepped into her embrace. She hugged him more tightly than he expected and held on for another moment before drawing back.
A trace of her perfume remained on his jacket. He had stood this close to Crimson Halo inside the game, but Katherine’s real embrace left him more flustered than her avatar ever had. Even in person, she carried the same calm authority.
"I’m glad we finally get to meet properly, Martin."
"Yeah. Me too." Martin rubbed the back of his neck. "My brain’s still catching up with you actually being here."
Katherine left her hand on his sleeve for another moment, then glanced toward the exit.
"I had a very different evening in mind for us," she said. "We’ll have it later. Tonight, I think Cassandra needs us more."
Katherine’s staff had a car waiting outside the exit. Once they were inside, the tinted windows hid them from the cameras and crowds around the terminal. Martin sat across from Katherine as the driver pulled into evening traffic toward Cassandra’s building.
"Why only us?" he asked. "Alexandra and Elisebeth both wanted to come. Rias probably has a better list of questions than everyone else combined."
"That’s why I didn’t bring everyone." Katherine removed her hat and glasses and set them on the empty seat beside her. "The entire group showing up at Cassandra’s home would feel like an ambush. She’d either refuse to see us or retreat into another formal meeting, and neither would help."
Martin leaned back. "You make that sound like a boss mechanic."
"It’s how she protects herself."
"And you think you can get through to her?"
"I can make sure your request reaches her. You’re the person she promised not to hide from, and you own shares in the company behind Night Espresso. That gives her office a reason to pass your request along instead of dismissing it as another interview request. It may be enough to get an answer."
"Shares don’t give me a right to enter her home."
"Of course not," Katherine said at once. "My staff had our names cleared for the private lobby so we could avoid the reporters outside. Your shares won’t open her elevator, and neither will my name. Cassandra decides whether we go upstairs."
Katherine watched the city slide past for a few seconds before turning back to him.
"I came because you shouldn’t have to walk into this alone. I also think she is more afraid of what you’ll say than of anything strangers have written about her."
Martin looked down at his hands. Raze’s cuts had vanished when Emperoar respawned, but he remembered the Crystal Warhammer slipping from his grasp when his fingers stopped obeying him.
"I don’t even know what I’m going to say when we’re standing in front of her."
"Then don’t rehearse it."
"That’s your advice? You’re an actress."
Katherine leaned forward, her expression turning serious. "Which is why I know how easy it is to hide behind prepared lines. Ask what you need to know and let her see how you actually feel. If you don’t know what you want afterward, tell her that too."
Martin nodded, though he still had no idea how to begin.
"Are you doing this for me or for her?"
Katherine did not answer right away.
"Both. What Cassandra set in motion could have killed Kumoe, and the danger isn’t over. I won’t excuse that." Katherine paused before continuing, her voice quieter. "But I care about her too. Anger doesn’t erase that, and I won’t pretend shutting all of us out is fine."
The car pulled beneath the awning of a high-rise whose upper floors vanished into the evening haze. Security barriers separated the private entrance from the sidewalk, where several reporters still waited despite the late hour.
Katherine put her hat and glasses back on before stepping out. A guard escorted them past the reporters and the outer security desk, then left them in the private lobby. The elevator to Cassandra’s penthouse remained locked.
At the inner reception desk, a security officer checked their names on his tablet, then shook his head.
"Ms. Selfmore has not authorized any visitors this evening."
"We don’t have an appointment, and I’m not asking you to let us upstairs," Katherine said. She removed her glasses so he could see her face, but kept her voice polite. "Please tell Cassandra we’re waiting. She can invite us up, come down to speak with Martin, or tell us to leave. We’ll respect whatever she decides. I only need the answer to come from her."
The officer studied them for another second, then stepped aside to make the call.
Martin waited until the officer moved out of earshot. "If she says no, are we really leaving after coming all this way?"
"Yes. It’s her home." Katherine glanced toward the private elevator. "I wanted the answer to come from Cassandra instead of an assistant protecting her schedule. If she tells us to go, we go."
They took seats across from the elevator. Katherine settled close enough for their sleeves to touch and rested one hand over his clenched fingers. Neither spoke while the doors stayed closed and the floor display remained dark.
—
Cassandra listened from the living room of her penthouse while her assistant relayed Katherine’s request.
The tablet on the side table displayed tomorrow’s schedule. Her phone lay beside it, open to Martin’s unanswered messages. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, thousands of city lights stretched below, just as they had when Cassandra admitted to Annie that she wanted to bring Martin here.
She had imagined inviting him after work so they could speak without the others around, then offering him the guest bedroom if it grew too late for him to travel home.
Martin was now waiting below because she had told him to continue without her. She could still refuse. Katherine had only made that refusal harder to delegate.
Cassandra opened the lobby camera feed. Martin sat beside Katherine in a dark jacket he had clearly chosen with care, his hands clasped in his lap with Katherine’s hand resting over them. Katherine glanced toward the camera, then turned her attention back to him.
There was no character-selection window in the penthouse. Cassandra could not hand this conversation to Victoria or let Kill Clause stand between them. If she opened the elevator, every answer would have to come from Cassandra Selfmore.
Her assistant waited on the call. "Should I tell them you won’t see them?"
Cassandra looked at the family photographs in the plain wooden frames her brother had made, then toward the hallway leading to the guest bedroom.
"No," she said. "Send them up."