Chapter 2
I did not take the staircase immediately.
That surprised Sybilla.
Good.
People with plans depend heavily on timing.
I preferred ruining it.
First, I sent Estelle to a private sitting room with one bodyguard.
“Call your daughter.”
Her eyes filled.
“Sir?”
“My phone works.”
She almost laughed.
Then nodded.
Important things first.
Her daughter had apparently been calling because the sitter could not find a school sweater.
Ordinary.
Beautifully ordinary.
Sybilla had destroyed a mother’s phone over a sweater call because she needed immediate obedience.
That detail told me as much about her as whatever waited upstairs.
Once Estelle was safe, I questioned Elias.
The upstairs guard rotation had changed at 10:42.
Official request:
Temporary privacy for engagement presentation.
Authorization name:
Estelle Greer.
Forged through household scheduling.
“Who has access?”
Elias answered:
“My office. Senior events. Your fiancée’s coordinator.”
Sybilla said nothing.
I looked at her.
“You forged an employee request.”
“I didn’t personally.”
Interesting wording.
“Who?”
No answer.
Then a sound came from above.
Soft.
A door closing.
Every head turned.
I smiled faintly.
Someone was definitely inside.
Sybilla whispered:
“Please don’t go up.”
That was the first honest sentence she had given me.
“Why?”
“They’ll panic.”
They.
Plural.
“Who?”
Her eyes closed.
“My father’s men.”
There.
Alistair Vane.
Sybilla’s father.
Security consultant.
Former head of a private protection network.
The same man who had spent our entire engagement telling me my household security was outdated.
I understood part of it immediately.
“Why are his men in my bedroom?”
No answer.
So I supplied one.
“To prove they can get there.”
Sybilla looked at me.
Bullseye.
A staged breach.
Create the weakness.
Then sell the cure.
But something about her fear still bothered me.
If the men were her father’s professionals, why wouldn’t she walk upstairs?
Unless they had been told not to expect her.
May you like
Or worse—
Unless they believed anyone entering that room was me.
