# Chapter 22
The private box sat above the ballroom's western side, accessible by a narrow staircase most guests didn't know existed — reserved, traditionally, for moments when the King wished to observe an event without fully joining it.
Tonight, it was empty. Or it should have been.
Angelo took the stairs two at a time, Reyes close behind him, three officers following at a distance meant to avoid drawing attention from the crowd below.
The door at the top was unlocked.
Angelo entered first, low, fast, the training of a lifetime taking over completely.
A man stood near the railing, looking down at the ballroom floor — at the King, still greeting guests below, entirely unaware of the vantage point now occupied above him.
The man turned as Angelo entered, and in his hand was a weapon Angelo recognized immediately as something built for exactly one purpose.
"Don't," Angelo said.
The man didn't listen.
What followed lasted seconds, though it felt, to Angelo, like it stretched far longer — the man raising the weapon toward the railing, Angelo closing the distance before the shot could be aimed, the two of them crashing into the wall as Reyes shouted something behind him that Angelo didn't fully hear.
The weapon discharged once, into the ceiling, plaster raining down around them as Angelo forced the man's arm upward and away from the crowd below.
It ended the way it had begun — quickly, violently, and entirely without ceremony. The man was on the ground, disarmed, restrained, within moments, Reyes's officers flooding the small room.
Angelo stood, breathing hard, and looked down through the railing.
Below, the ballroom continued, largely undisturbed. A few guests near the western wall had glanced up at the muffled sound, but the orchestra played on, and the King, still unaware how close danger had come, continued smiling at a foreign ambassador as though nothing at all had happened.
"He's not Aldana," Reyes said, crouching beside the restrained man, checking his face against a photograph on his phone. "Hired. Recently, I'd guess, given how little training he clearly has."
"Then where is Aldana?"
Reyes's expression answered before he spoke.
"Watching," he said. "From somewhere he believed was safe enough to observe his plan succeed without risking himself."
Angelo looked back down at the ballroom, at the hundreds of unaware faces below, and understood, with cold certainty, that the night wasn't finished yet.