Chapter 1 — My Fiancée Toasted My Death

My fiancée was upstairs celebrating my murder when I pressed a gun beneath my maid’s chin.

The woman caught my wrist with both hands.

“If you want to live, stop making noise.”

I had come home with blood dried beneath my shirt and a pistol in my coat. I had expected an ambush. I had not expected Sophia Bennett, who usually apologized before entering a room, to give me orders in my own house.

Lightning lit the entrance hall. Her gray uniform was torn at the shoulder. Something dark stained her sleeve.

“Where are my guards?” I asked.

Her eyes moved toward the staircase.

“Two are in the security room. The others never made it out of the staff quarters.”

“Who did this?”

“Your friend. Now please take your hand off my throat.”

A shoe scraped the landing above us.

I eased my grip. She pulled me behind the nearest column as a flashlight swept across the floor where we had been standing.

“Anything?” a man called.

“Front door’s shut. Probably the wind.”

I recognized the second voice. Nico Velez. Damian Costa had brought him into our security operation eighteen months earlier.

Damian had also arranged my driver in Sicily.

The previous afternoon, outside Palermo, I had stepped out of my sedan to check a warning sent from an unknown number. The message contained only a photograph of the car’s license plate.

Then the car exploded.

My driver died behind the wheel. I woke in a drainage ditch with a burned shoulder and enough hearing left to understand that another vehicle was approaching.

I had reached an old contact, found passage home, and told nobody I was alive.

Now I knew why nobody had come looking.

Sophia tugged my sleeve and pointed toward the library.

I followed with the gun lowered beside my leg. Every camera on my phone showed the same empty hallway, stamped 11:43 p.m. Whoever had taken the house had done it with passwords, schedules, and the cooperation of men I paid to protect it.

At the library entrance, Sophia stopped me.

Broken glass covered the floor. She lifted the hem of her uniform, stepped over it, and reached the bookcase beside the fireplace.

Her thumb pressed the carved falcon’s eye.

The shelf opened.

I caught her arm.

“How do you know about that?”

“Ask me after we’re somewhere they can’t shoot us.”

A beam of light appeared beneath the library door.

I let her go.

We slipped into the wall. Sophia eased the shelf shut, keeping one hand against the wood until the mechanism settled. Through the narrow viewing slit, I watched Nico enter with another armed man.

“Costa wants the girl found,” Nico said.

“Which girl?”

“The maid. She saw the security room.”

The other man lifted his rifle.

Sophia stood so close that I felt her breath against my collar. I touched her wrist, warning her to remain still. Her pulse hammered beneath my fingers.

The men checked the windows and adjoining sitting room. Neither approached the shelf.

When they left, I bent toward her ear.

“Did you see them die?”

She swallowed.

“I heard the shots. I went to the security room afterward. Marco was still breathing, but I couldn’t stop the blood.”

Marco had worked for me for nine years. His daughter had started college last month.

I looked at the stain on Sophia’s sleeve.

“How many men?”

“Eight that I counted upstairs. Two downstairs. There could be more outside.”

I had thirty-two rounds and no idea who else had changed sides.

Sophia pointed upward. We climbed the service stair inside the wall, reaching a small recess behind my study. My father had used it to listen to business associates who believed they were alone.

I had sealed the entrance after his funeral.

Someone had opened it again.

Warm light spilled through the iron grille. Damian stood beside my fireplace, pouring my whiskey into two glasses.

Camila sat in my chair.

She wore the red dress I had bought her in Milan and the diamond necklace she had asked to wear at our wedding.

“To Matteo,” Damian said.

She raised her glass.

“He would hate knowing we opened this bottle without him.”

Damian laughed. Camila joined him.

For a moment, I could hear nothing else.

Three days earlier, she had fastened my cuff links before I left for Sicily. She had kissed the scar beside my eye and reminded me that the florist needed an answer about white roses.

I had promised to call.

She had been choosing flowers for a wedding she never intended to attend.

“We should move,” she said. “You’ve had your drink.”

“The documents are being handled.”

“I’m his fiancée, Damian. A ring doesn’t give me his companies.”

“Which is why we have signatures and a succession agreement. By morning, the people who matter will believe he approved both.”

She touched the necklace.

“And the people who don’t believe it?”

Damian set his glass down.

“They’ll be reminded who controls the payroll.”

I raised my pistol toward the grille.

Sophia gripped my wrist.

I turned on her. She did not release me.

“Your sister,” she whispered.

My hand stopped.

Below us, Camila rose.

“Lily’s signature won’t be as easy.”

“She’s at the river terminal. We’ll deal with her there.”

My sister was supposed to be in Boston. She had sent me a photograph of a restaurant on Thursday and told me to stop checking whether she had eaten.

I had replied with the name of the man I had assigned to her security.

She had not answered.

“You’re certain she can authorize the eastern holdings?” Camila asked.

“With the right documents.”

“And Crown?”

Damian glanced toward the door before answering.

“Thomas says he can get us in.”

Sophia’s hand tightened around my wrist.

I looked down at her fingers. Then at her face.

She was staring through the grille, lips parted, as if she had forgotten we were hiding.

I moved the pistol away from the study and pressed its barrel against her side.

“Don’t move.”

Her eyes returned to mine.

“Matteo—”

“You know the passage. You knew about Sicily. Now that name means something to you. You’re going to explain all of it.”

Before she could answer, Camila spoke again.

“What happens to Lily afterward?”

Damian checked his watch.

“She signs what we need.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

He looked at the woman I had intended to marry.

“Once the transfer is finished, we kill her.”