Chapter 2
The door opened into the bridal suite without a sound.
Candles burned on the mantel and along the windowsill, their flames bending in the draft. White roses filled the room with a sweet, heavy smell that made my stomach tighten. Someone had knocked over the small table beside the settee. A vase lay broken across the rug, water soaking into the fabric.
My mother was gone.
I stepped over the glass.
“Mom?”
My voice sounded too small for the room.
Roman closed the iron door behind us but didn't lock it. I noticed because I was watching his hands now. I watched everything he did.
The bed had not been slept in. The coverlet was smooth except for a shallow dent near the footboard. On the vanity, my phone charger remained coiled beside a hairbrush. Evelyn's phone lay facedown near the roses.
I picked it up.
The screen was cracked from one corner to the center. Three missed calls showed beneath the damage. All from the same blocked number.
Roman came close enough to see but stopped before touching the phone.
“Did she answer?”
“I don't know.”
“Clara.”
“Don't ask me questions you already know I can't answer.”
His gaze moved to the open passage. “She may have left voluntarily.”
I laughed once. It came out dry. “After a gunshot, an explosion, and a locked tunnel?”
“The passage was open.”
“You're doing it again.”
“What?”
“Making the least frightening explanation sound reasonable.”
He looked at the phone in my hand. “Fear makes people miss details.”
“I've been missing details my whole life.”
The words came out before I could stop them.
Roman's expression changed, barely. His eyes moved to my right shoulder, where the torn edge of my gown exposed a section of the old burn scar. The dark shape within it seemed clearer under the candlelight: a broken curve, two narrow points, the suggestion of wings around a crown.
He reached inside his jacket.
I stiffened.
He stopped immediately. “I'm not going to touch you.”
“Then show me.”
He withdrew the pendant and held it in his open palm. The blackened metal looked older than anything else in the room. The half-winged crown matched the shape in my scar so precisely that my skin went cold.
“How long have you had it?” I asked.
“Long enough to know it belonged near you.”
“That's not an answer.”
“No.”
“Did you know about my scar before today?”
His silence was worse than a confession.
I crossed the room and took the pendant from his hand. He let me. The chain slid across my palm, cold and rough. A small hinge ran along the broken edge, almost invisible beneath the blackened surface.
“You knew,” I said.
“I suspected.”
“You suspected that my burn scar was a Valenti crest?”
“I suspected the crest was connected to you.”
“Why didn't you tell me before I married you?”
His face went still. “Because I didn't have proof.”
“You had this.”
“I had a pendant. I didn't know what had been done to you, or why.”
The phrase made my throat close.
“What do you mean, done to me?”
“I don't know.”
“Then stop speaking like you do.”
He accepted that without defending himself. I turned away and saw a folded sheet beneath the vanity. It had been pushed behind one of the legs, as if someone had tried to hide it quickly.
I crouched and pulled it free.
The paper was torn from a ledger. Columns of dates and numbers covered one side. At the bottom, in faded ink, someone had drawn half of a winged crown.
Beside it was a handwritten note.
BELLHAVEN HARBOR — TRANSFER PENDING
V. ARCHIVE — HOLD UNTIL MARKED
My fingers tightened around the page.
Roman read it over my shoulder. “Where did you find that?”
“Here.”
“Give it to me.”
“No.”
“It may be contaminated.”
“You mean it may tell me something you don't want me to know.”
His eyes hardened. “I mean whoever left it may still be watching this room.”
“Then let them watch.”
A phone began to ring.
Not mine. Not Evelyn's.
The sound came from inside the roses.
I froze. Roman moved between me and the vase, then stopped when I stepped around him. A small black phone had been tucked beneath the flowers. Its screen showed no number.
I answered.
No one spoke.
I heard traffic in the distance, tires passing over wet pavement, and then a woman's breath.
“Mom?”
The line clicked.
A text appeared a moment later.
SHE IS ALIVE. COME ALONE. COUNTY ROAD DINER. ONE HOUR.
Below it was a photograph of Evelyn seated beneath a yellow neon sign. Her face was turned away, but the silver bracelet was visible on her wrist.
Roman read the message.
“You're not going alone,” he said.
May you like
I closed my fist around the pendant and the ledger page.
“I wasn't planning to.”
