Page 24 of Pursuing the Egoist
The phone chimed again, further unsettling him. With a neurotic hand, Yugo grabbed it and thumbed the screen, wondering who the hell messaged him in the middle of the night. He frowned. Among the dozen of Mio’s messages, one was from Greg and had an audio file attached to it. The time of delivery said eleven a.m.
His gaze darted to the window. Weak light leaked into the room through the curtain slits, playing with the crystal drops of the bronze chandelier. He stared back at the screen, yawned, and hit the play icon.
“It’s me.” The speakers whispered in a female voice that sounded vaguely familiar.
“Did you arrive?” Yugo recognized the voice instantly, as it belonged to the man from his dream.
“I couldn’t leave.” Lena’s voice broke, and she sniffed as if she was about to cry. “A homeless man spat at me and called me a whore. A kid bumped into me and smeared ice cream all over my coat. When I was about to get on the train, I found a slice in my purse. It’s all gone, money, documents, everything. I had to go to the hospital and beg a doctor to fabricate my time of arrival. Sergen thinks I fainted and stayed in the hospital overnight. He feels guilty and brought me flowers, so I don’t have much time.”
“I’ll get you a new passport, but you have to leave now. Come to my place.”
“I can’t. And I was thinking…” She sniffed again, but her voice hardened. “Kuon, I have to wait. If I leave now, you will never arrest him, because he will never go to Slovenia.”
“Lena…”
“If I leave now, and he gets arrested with the batch, what do you think the S-Syndicate will think?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Kuon insisted. “You will be in a safe house, with a new set of documents. No one will ever find you.”
“I’m sorry, Kuon. I’m not that brave.” Her soft contralto dropped to low, metallic notes. “I gave you everything I had. Arrest him or kill him, I don’t care. But do it soon, Kuon. I won’t call anymore. Bye.”
Yugo stared at the darkening screen, then smirked, and got up. A shower sounded like a great idea.
CHAPTER 6
MIO CALLED.Judging by the capricious notes in his trembling voice, he wobbled on the verge of a breakdown. At any other time, Yugo would invite him over, but without Greg, he’d gotten bogged down in a sticky swamp of minor tasks. Promising Mio to meet soon, he hung up.
Greg showed up the next evening. Wearing a grim expression, he gave Yugo a short report before disappearing again. Yugo’s annoyance grew with every passing hour. Used to Greg’s constant presence, he had to resort to typing messages instead of calling out for him. But he missed the rich texture of Greg’s coffee the most. The maid could never brew it right, bringing him disgusting slush instead.
The next day, when the sun reached its zenith, and Greg had still failed to report, Yugo growled, pushing away a white, porcelain cup that emitted a bitter, burned smell. He glanced at his watch, wondering what was keeping Greg. He’d never even been half an hour late before, especially for a meeting with him. “Fucking Greg, found the worst time for a fling. Where the fuck are you?”
Fetching his phone, he speed-dialed Greg but got transferred to voicemail. Knuckles cracked around the device as he squeezed it in his hand; his jaw hurt with pressure.
Grabbing his jacket, he stormed out of his mansion.
INSTEAD OF CALMING HIM DOWN,two hours of driving tightened his nerves. When Yugo got out of the car, his back was sweaty, even though his Maserati's climate control had shown eighteen degrees.
Snow swirled, dusting his shoulders and polished shoes. Only one hundred and thirty-five kilometers separated his mansion from the city, yet it made all the difference. In Lower Austria snow swallowed the ground, but here in Vienna, it melted as soon as it kissed the pavement.
The majestic Imperial Aviso hotel stretched above him. The arcade of glass and yellow stone of the first floor glowed from within with a welcoming, yellow light, reminding him of Christmas. The red paint, covering the four stories above, outlined the public part of the building. A thread of golden lights, stretching alongside the frieze, separated the top, private floors. Four domes topped the roof, each guarded by four marble statues. Greg owned five penthouses on the top floor, but even the windows of the one his subordinate called home were dark.
Without thinking, Yugo moved to the entrance. The glass doors slid open, welcoming him into the Grand Foyer. The white, mirror-smooth marble floor reflected hundreds of built-in lights, shining from the multi-layered, elaborate ceiling. Brown and beige chairs and couches filled the airy space; the bitter sweetness of coffee and cinnamon permeated the air.
Ignoring the reception desk, Yugo entered the glass elevator. It was the first time he’d had to use the elevator key for the private area, as he’d never needed to come here alone. Floors changed in front of his eyes as the pull of gravity increased a fraction. Seconds later, the cabin stopped, and the doors slid open, letting him into the gray, round atrium. Four corridors stretched from it in every direction.
Yugo had only been at Greg’s a few times, long ago, but nothing had changed since. A set of cameras, surrounding the heavy door, glared at him from the end of one corridor. An intercom and retina scan door lock nestled on the left wall, next to the door.
He approached the scan and provided his eye for the security check, wondering if his details were still in Greg’s database. The door unlocked and opened, letting him in.
Black, burnt wood covered the floor. Absorbing the light, it made the place look darker. The few sets of built-in lights in the wooden ceiling looked incapable of illuminating the spacious room. Floor lamps guarded a few ivory sofas and ottomans, arranged in front of the wall-long, inclined window. Opposite, a wide bookcase gaped with half-empty shelves. Everything was the same as he remembered.
Sniffing, he frowned as a faint smell of antiseptic mixed with the sweetly-sickening stench of alcohol and vomit reached him.
What the hell is going on?
After circling the first floor, Yugo got back to the hall, then spotted a gray staircase, hiding behind a glass banister. His shoes clanged against the floor as the texture changed from dark wood to matte gray stone, then silenced again as it switched back to wood.
The same quiet of desolation that reigned on the first floor met him on the second, except for the stench. It grew stronger. He raised his eyes to the winter sky. Dressed in yellow and gray, it kept spewing fluffy snowflakes. Sticking to the slanted window that took over the wall and a large part of the ceiling, the snow melted and trailed down, the watery paths amalgamating with each other.
