The floor plan was largely open, seven thousand square feet of poured concrete split by workout stations, sitting areas, a freestanding fireplace, and a steel staircase that twisted up to a loft. Countless safeguards hid inside the sleek, modern space. The windows and sliding glass doors that turned two walls into a city panorama? Bullet-resistant Lexan armed with shatter-detection software. The periwinkle retractable sunscreens? Woven titanium armor. The quartz-rock-layered balconies cupping the sides of the condo? Secondary alarms rigged to detect the audio signature of an unwelcome guest’s boots compressing the stones.

Evan slipped around the island to the Sub-Zero. Nestled among the ice cubes, a fat bottle of Karlsson’s Gold beckoned. The handcrafted Swedish vodka, comprising seven kinds of potatoes, was uniquely made, distilled a single time through a copper-lined still. Evan poured a few fingers into a rocks glass over a spherical ice cube and garnished the drink with a single twist of ground pepper from a stainless-steel mill.

Clean as a scalpel up front. Hint of mineral on the finish. Lingering bite of pepper.

Perfect.

Evan walked to the fireplace, fired up the pyre of cedar logs, then peeled off his mission clothes and fed them to the flames. With the rocks glass dangling at his side, he padded naked across the vast space and down the brief hall, passing the spot where his dear departed nineteenth-century katana used to hang. The bare wall hooks reminded him that he’d recently won an online bid for a replacement samurai sword, one that dated back to the Early Edo period. The shipment was due to arrive soon from the Seki auction house.

He stepped through his bedroom into the bathroom and tapped the frosted-glass shower door, which recessed into the wall on silent tracks. Turning the water up as hot as he could stand, he ducked into the stream. He scrubbed. The water ran dark, a crimson swirl circling the drain.

It took a wire brush and some effort to get his fingernails clean.

After drying off he headed into the bedroom and dressed in the same outfit he’d worn before. Dark jeans, gray V-necked T-shirt. Before turning away from the dresser, he hesitated over the bottom drawer.

Emotion came up under his skin, a flush of heat.

He tugged the drawer open and used his thumbnail to lift the false bottom.

Beneath, a blue flannel shirt, blackened with old blood.

Jack’s blood.

There wasn’t a night in the past eight years that Evan didn’t turn off the light, close his eyes, and watch Jack bleed out in his arms.