Chapter 2
The music salon door was locked from the inside.
Rafe Morello, my senior capo, broke it open.
The room was empty.
One window stood open.
A champagne glass rested on the piano.
Beside it lay a cigar still warm enough to smell.
Someone had left less than five minutes earlier.
I walked to the window.
Below it was the east garden, then a service lane leading toward the rear gates.
No body.
No car.
Whoever had been there knew the property.
Genevieve remained in the doorway between two of my men.
I looked at her.
“Who?”
She shook her head.
I picked up the cigar.
Cedar wrapper.
Black-and-gold band.
I knew the brand.
So did she.
Her father smoked them.
Edmund Ashworth.
Sixty-one.
Polished.
Patient.
Head of a family that pretended it had moved out of organized power and into respectable finance twenty years ago.
I had never believed that completely.
I had believed Genevieve was different.
That mistake was mine.
“Your father was here.”
“No.”
“Then he lends strangers his cigars.”
She looked away.
Good.
I returned to the ballroom.
Guests had been quietly separated by my men. No one left until we understood who had used my house as a private meeting room.
Fatima sat near the fireplace with Amara wrapped in a blanket.
The child’s stuffed lamb was drying beside her.
I crouched.
“Amara, did you see the man?”
Fatima immediately said, “Boss, she’s frightened.”
“I know.”
I softened my voice.
“She doesn’t have to answer.”
Amara looked at her mother.
Fatima nodded.
The girl turned back to me.
“Gray hair.”
Edmund.
Maybe.
“What was he doing?”
“Talking to pretty lady.”
Genevieve.
“What did they say?”
She frowned, trying to assemble adult words.
“Wedding first.”
I waited.
“Then your house.”
Genevieve shifted behind me.
Amara continued.
“And men listen to her daddy.”
The room went silent.
I looked at my fiancée.
She said nothing.
Then Amara added the detail that changed the shape of everything.
“Pretty lady said Mommy knows.”
Fatima froze.
I turned slowly.
She was staring at Genevieve.
Not confused.
Terrified.
“What do you know?”
Fatima’s lips parted.
Nothing came out.
Genevieve whispered:
“Don’t.”
That was the wrong person giving orders in my house.
I looked at Fatima.
“What does she think you know?”
Fatima held her daughter tighter.
Then said:
“Why she needed to marry you before Mr. Ashworth moved his men.”
Genevieve’s eyes closed.
May you like
The wedding was not merely part of the plan.
It was the permission the plan needed.
