They left separately, of course.
Elena took the company car at dawn, black coat collar turned up, sunglasses hiding the faint bruises on her throat. Valeria followed three hours later in a rideshare, baseball cap pulled low, duffel bag slung over one shoulder like any other dancer escaping the city for a long weekend. No one saw them arrive together. No one ever would.
The hotel was anonymous and expensive: thirty-second floor, corner suite, windows on two sides overlooking the river and the lights that never slept. Elena had booked it under the name of a long-dead ballerina no one would question. The key card waited at reception in an unmarked envelope.
Valeria let herself in at four-seventeen p.m. The curtains were already drawn. The only light came from the city bleeding through the
