Chapter 1
The velvet was not quite touching my face, but I could feel it. Dark, heavy, dust-warm from the mansion's heat, hanging a half inch from my cheek and holding the night on the other side. Her finger was on my mouth. Not a soft touch. Pressed firm against my lips, the skin of her index finger warm, slightly damp. I could taste salt. I could hear both of us breathing through our noses, trying to make it quiet, failing.
That didn't make sense. She was the maid. Brown hair pulled back, black uniform with the white collar I'd seen a hundred times in the hallway, and she had no business being this close, no business deciding whether I lived. The office across the threshold was mine. The desk, the rug, the portrait of my father above the fireplace — mine at its peak, with three strangers in suits going through it like they owned it, and I was the one pressed behind a curtain like a trespasser.
My name is Victor Kane. I was thirty-four and I owned the house they were searching.
It was just past midnight. The wing had gone dark except for the low lamp in the office. I had come down for water after the pain woke me — the cut along my ribs still pulled when I breathed — and found her already in the hall alcove, eyes wide, shaking her head once before she pulled me behind the curtain. No time to explain. Then the front lock clicked. Then the heavy steps. Then the low voices. Now we stood in the narrow space between curtain and wall, her back against the paneling, my shoulder against hers, both of us looking out through the slit where the velvet didn't quite meet the doorframe.
Through that slit I could see my office. The three men worked without hurry. One at the desk, pulling drawers all the way out, running his hand along the undersides. One along the bookshelves, tilting books forward. One standing beneath the portrait, staring up at it before he reached up and felt along the frame. Papers were spread across the leather desktop, some held up to the lamp light. I watched the second man's mouth move.
"Find the Red Ledger," he said.
The first man didn't look up. "Victor."
My jaw tightened against her finger. She felt it. Her hand shifted from my mouth to my chest, palm flat over my shirt, holding me back. Her ring caught the faint light — thin gold band on her left hand — and pressed cold against my sternum.
"If Marino survived, he'll come here," the man by the portrait said. His voice was lower, almost lazy. He tapped the desk. "Check the safe."
The third man shook his head. "You walk in there, you die."
I didn't know which one he meant. Me, walking into my own office. Or Marino, walking into the trap they'd set. My ribs throbbed. I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd held, and it came out shaky. The woman's eyes flicked to mine. In that dim warm light her face was all tension, lips parted, eyes reflecting the lamp from the other room.
I mouthed, Who are you?
She stared at me for a beat, then leaned so close her breath was on my ear. Her whisper was barely sound at all.
"Ask me when we survive this."
May you like
On the other side of the curtain, a floorboard creaked. One of the men had turned. He was looking straight at the doorway. Straight at the dark slit where my eye was.
He started walking toward us.
