Chapter 1
Nobody moved.
Not Camille.
Not the two servers standing near the kitchen doors.
Not Mr. and Mrs. Harrow from Adrian’s board.
Not even the violinist in the alcove, whose bow had gone still halfway through a note.
Adrian held Marcus Romano’s ring between two fingers.
The black stone caught the candlelight.
For eleven years, Marcus Romano had been a ghost in this house.
A framed photograph in the upstairs hall.
A name people lowered their voices around.
A tragedy no one questioned because questioning grief was considered cruel.
I had never met him.
But I had seen his face often enough to recognize the younger man in the family photographs.
Dark hair.
A scar through his left eyebrow.
A smile that looked nothing like Adrian’s.
Adrian’s smile, when it appeared, was controlled.
Marcus looked like he had smiled with his whole body.
The man in the security photograph had not been smiling.
He had been standing beside Camille in the west corridor three hours earlier.
And afterward, I had found blood on my scarf.
Adrian set the photograph beside his plate.
“Dinner is over.”
His voice was quiet.
That frightened everyone more than if he had shouted.
One of the guests cleared his throat.
“Adrian, surely this can wait until—”
“No.”
Adrian looked toward the doors.
“Thomas.”
The head of security appeared almost immediately.
He was a square-built man in his fifties who rarely looked surprised.
Tonight, he did.
Adrian slid the photograph toward him.
“Lock the property.”
Camille laughed once.
Too sharply.
“You cannot be serious.”
Adrian did not look at her.
“Every exterior door. Every vehicle gate. No one leaves until I say so.”
Mrs. Harrow put down her napkin.
“Adrian, there are ten people here.”
“There are eleven.”
He looked at Camille.
“If Marcus is still in my house.”
The room changed.
I could feel it.
It was no longer an elegant dinner.
It was a trap.
And maybe it had been one from the beginning.
Thomas studied the photograph.
“Where was this taken?”
I pointed toward the west sitting room again.
He looked at me, then at my face.
His eyes dropped to the scarf around my neck.
“What happened to her?”
Camille answered before Adrian could.
“She fell.”
I shook my head.
Adrian turned toward her.
“Stop speaking for her.”
“I’m trying to help.”
“No, you are trying to control the story.”
Her face tightened.
“That’s ridiculous.”
Adrian stepped closer to me.
His expression changed when he saw how hard I was breathing.
“Hannah.”
I looked up.
“Can you write?”
I nodded.
He reached for a leather notebook beside the wine list and handed me a pen.
My fingers barely closed around it.
Pain traveled through my knuckles.
The bruising there had only started to rise.
Adrian noticed.
Of course he did.
His eyes sharpened again.
I wrote slowly.
HE CAME THROUGH WEST HALL.
CAMILLE LET HIM IN.
HE ASKED ME WHERE YOU KEEP THE BLUE FILE.
I SAID I DIDN’T KNOW.
HE HIT ME.
HE HAD A KNIFE.
The pen slipped.
Adrian caught it before it hit the floor.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he read the words again.
“Blue file?”
Camille’s chair scraped back.
“I have no idea what she is talking about.”
Adrian looked at her.
“That is interesting.”
“Why?”
“Because I have never called it that.”
Camille went still.
Neither had I.
I had only written the phrase the man had used.
Adrian’s eyes remained on her.
“There is one file in my private study with a blue binding.”
Camille swallowed.
“I’ve seen your office.”
“No. You have not.”
“We’re engaged.”
“That does not give you access to my private safe.”
She gave a small disbelieving laugh.
“This is insane.”
Adrian picked up the ring.
“Then explain this.”
“I can’t.”
“Try.”
Her eyes flicked toward the other guests.
Every face at the table had become carefully neutral.
Nobody wanted to be seen choosing a side.
Camille lowered her voice.
“Not here.”
Adrian’s expression hardened.
“You brought my dead brother into my home during our engagement dinner.”
Her mouth opened.
“I did not bring him here.”
“Then how did he get through a security perimeter designed by people who protect diplomats?”
She said nothing.
Adrian turned to Thomas.
“Pull every camera from six this morning forward.”
Thomas nodded.
“Already doing it.”
“And get Dr. Patel here.”
Camille stared at him.
“For what?”
Adrian looked at me.
“For Hannah.”
The room blurred slightly.
Not because I was about to faint.
I refused to faint.
I had made it through the pantry.
The west corridor.
The staff bathroom where I had wrapped the scarf around my neck and pressed paper towels against the cuts until the bleeding slowed.
I could make it through this.
But Adrian must have seen something in my face.
His hand came beneath my elbow.
Not gripping.
Supporting.
“Sit.”
Camille made another sound.
“Oh, please.”
Adrian’s head turned.
The temperature in the room seemed to drop.
“Camille.”
She stopped.
“I suggest you choose your next words very carefully.”
Her face flushed.
“You’re humiliating me in front of everyone because a housekeeper is accusing me of something absurd.”
I stared at her.
Housekeeper.
The word itself did not bother me.
I had cleaned these floors.
Polished the silver.
Carried trays.
Scrubbed wine from rugs after people like Camille laughed too loudly and knocked over crystal.
What bothered me was the way she said it.
As if my job made bruises less real.
Adrian must have heard the contempt too.
“Hannah has worked in this house for two years.”
“So?”
“So I know what she looks like when she is tired. I know what she looks like when she is nervous. I know what she looks like when a guest has spoken to her rudely and she is pretending it did not matter.”
His gaze went to my neck.
“I have never seen her look like this.”
Camille folded her arms.
“She could have done that to herself.”
A chair moved.
One of the older guests, Elena Romano, Adrian’s aunt, stood slowly.
She had not spoken all evening.
Now she looked at Camille with open disgust.
“That is enough.”
Camille blinked.
Elena walked toward me.
She stopped close enough to see the bruising beneath my hair.
Her hand lifted, then lowered without touching.
“My God.”
She looked at Adrian.
“Call the police.”
Camille snapped, “No.”
Everyone turned.
Camille realized the mistake immediately.
Adrian’s eyes narrowed.
“Why not?”
“I mean—this is a family matter.”
Elena’s expression became cold.
“If Marcus is alive, it stopped being a family matter the moment he put a knife against this woman’s throat.”
My stomach turned.
I had not told them that part.
Not exactly.
The cuts had come when I jerked away.
The blade had skimmed, again and again, because he had been angry and careless.
Superficial.
That was what a doctor might call them.
They had not felt superficial.
Adrian looked at me.
“Did he hold the knife to your throat?”
I nodded.
His jaw flexed.
Thomas’s phone buzzed.
He glanced at the screen.
Then his face changed.
“Sir.”
Adrian turned.
“What?”
“We have a problem.”
Thomas held up his phone.
“Camera system lost twelve minutes of footage between six forty-one and six fifty-three.”
Adrian’s eyes went to Camille.
She shook her head immediately.
“That proves nothing.”
Thomas continued.
“The west gate opened at six forty-three.”
“Vehicle?”
“No plate reading.”
“Manual override?”
Thomas looked grim.
“Yes.”
Adrian’s voice dropped.
“Who has that code?”
“Security supervisors.”
A pause.
“And household executive access.”
Camille’s breathing changed.
Adrian heard it.
“So,” he said. “You.”
“Not only me.”
“Name another person at this table who has it.”
She did not.
The first siren sounded in the distance.
Camille’s eyes widened.
“You called them?”
Thomas said, “I did.”
She turned toward Adrian.
“You’re making a terrible mistake.”
“No.”
Adrian slid the ring into his pocket.
“My mistake was believing you.”
For the first time, something close to panic appeared on her face.
She stepped toward him.
“Adrian, listen to me.”
“No.”
“You don’t understand what Marcus wants.”
The room went completely silent.
Adrian stared at her.
Camille stopped breathing.
She had said his name.
Not maybe.
Not if.
Marcus.
Adrian took one step closer.
“What does my brother want?”
Camille’s lips parted.
Nothing came out.
Adrian’s voice was almost gentle.
“You have one chance.”
She looked at me.
The hatred in her eyes was so sudden and naked that I stepped backward.
Adrian moved in front of me.
Camille saw it.
And something inside her cracked.
“He wants what you stole from him.”
Adrian’s face went blank.
“I stole nothing.”
“That is not what he says.”
“My brother has been legally dead for eleven years.”
“He was supposed to be.”
Elena grabbed the back of a chair.
“What does that mean?”
Camille looked around as if she had only just realized how many witnesses were present.
Her voice dropped.
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
Adrian stepped forward.
“No. You should have said it months ago.”
She shook her head.
“You have no idea what your father did.”
At the mention of Vittorio Romano, Adrian’s father, Elena’s face drained of color.
Adrian noticed.
“Aunt Elena?”
She sat down slowly.
“Not here.”
Adrian’s laugh held no humor.
“Apparently everyone in this family has decided tonight is the night to say that.”
The sirens grew louder.
Blue light flashed faintly against the tall windows.
Then Thomas’s radio crackled.
A guard’s voice came through, urgent.
“Movement on the east property line.”
Thomas grabbed the radio.
“Description?”
“Male. Dark coat. Heading toward the greenhouse.”
Adrian looked at me.
My entire body went cold.
Thomas ordered two men toward the east garden.
Adrian started after him.
I caught his sleeve.
He looked down.
I shook my head hard.
Don’t.
He understood.
“I’m not letting him disappear again.”
I wrote quickly on the notebook.
HE WANTS YOU TO FOLLOW.
Adrian read it.
His eyes lifted to mine.
“How do you know?”
I wrote:
HE SAID YOU ALWAYS RUN TOWARD FAMILY.
Adrian stared at the words.
Then he looked toward the dark windows.
A branch moved outside.
Wind.
Or someone passing.
Thomas said, “Sir, stay inside.”
Adrian did not answer.
The front door opened somewhere beyond the dining room.
Police voices filled the foyer.
Camille sat down abruptly.
Her hands were shaking now.
A detective entered with two uniformed officers.
Before anyone could speak, a crash exploded from the west side of the house.
Glass.
A woman screamed.
Thomas drew his weapon.
Adrian pushed me behind him.
Another crash.
Then the lights went out.
Darkness swallowed the dining room.
Someone shouted.
A chair hit the floor.
I heard Camille running.
Adrian’s hand found mine.
“Hannah.”
I squeezed once.
I was here.
Then a voice came from the darkness.
Close.
Male.
Calm.
Familiar from the west corridor.
“Hello, little brother.”
Adrian stopped breathing.
Emergency lights flickered red along the walls.
At the far end of the dining room stood the man from the photograph.
Tall.
Dark-haired.
Scar through his left eyebrow.
Marcus Romano.
Alive.
He smiled.
But there was nothing warm in it.
“Eleven years,” he said.
Adrian stared at him.
Marcus’s gaze moved to me.
His smile disappeared.
“You should have kept quiet, Hannah.”
Adrian stepped in front of me.
Marcus looked back at his brother.
Then raised one hand.
He was holding a small blue folder.
Adrian’s face changed.
Marcus smiled again.
“You really should improve your security.”
And before Thomas could reach him, smoke burst through the west doorway.
Thick.
White.
Burning my eyes.
People screamed.
Adrian pulled me against him.
May you like
Somewhere in the chaos, Marcus laughed.
Then came the unmistakable sound of a gunshot.
