middle of a war she had not known existed.
Then she saw the glove.
It lay half-hidden beneath her suitcase, black leather, damp from rain. She knew instantly it was not hers. When she picked it up, something fell from inside the palm.
A small silver key.
Someone had been in her room.
Clara opened the door and listened.
From somewhere below came voices.
Nathaniel’s voice was low and lethal.
“You should have stayed dead, Sloane.”
Another man laughed softly.
“And you should have stopped loving women who become liabilities.”
Clara’s skin turned cold.
She moved toward the staircase and looked down into the library.
Nathaniel stood near the fireplace. Across from him was the silver-haired man from dinner, the one who had made Nathaniel’s hand tighten around his glass.
Victor Sloane.
He looked civilized. That was the horror of it. No monster face. No obvious evil. Just a tailored jacket, a brandy glass, and calm eyes.
“Your new bride is charming,” Victor said. “Frightened, though. People like that can be persuaded.”
Nathaniel crossed the room so quickly Clara barely saw him move.
He seized Victor by the throat and drove him against the shelves.
“She is not part of this.”
Victor smiled through the pressure on his neck.
“Then why bring her?”
The question struck Clara harder than she expected.
Before Nathaniel could answer, the older bodyguard from Boston appeared in the doorway.
“Sir,” he said. “The server room was opened.”
Victor’s smile faltered.
Only for a second.
But Clara saw it.
She looked down at the key in her hand.
Server room.
Proof.
She backed away and hurried through a service corridor behind the kitchen. The villa staff moved around her in controlled panic, pretending the fire in the air was none of their concern. At the end of the hall, she found a steel door with a keypad and an old-fashioned lock.
The silver key fit.
Inside, monitors glowed in the dim room. Drives and folders covered a desk. A laptop sat open, the screen still awake.
Clara saw a folder labeled CRANE.
She clicked it.
What opened made her breath stop.
Bank transfers. Scanned passports. Surveillance photographs. Shell companies. Medical charity accounts. And one video file dated four years earlier.
The bridge.
She opened it with trembling fingers.
The footage was grainy, but clear enough. A black car moved across a rain-slick road. Another vehicle came up behind it, too fast, too deliberate. The impact sent the first car spinning through the barrier and into the dark water below.
The second car stopped.
A man stepped out.
Victor Sloane.
He watched the broken railing for a moment, buttoned his coat, then returned to his vehicle and drove away.
Clara’s eyes burned.
This was not just Nathaniel’s revenge.
It was evidence.
She plugged in a drive and began copying everything.
The progress bar moved too slowly.
Forty percent.
Fifty-two.
Sixty-eight.
Then a voice behind her said, “Clever little bride.”
Clara turned.
Victor stood in the doorway.
He smiled as if they had met at a dinner party.
“I wondered whether Nathaniel would find the room first,” he said. “I did not expect you.”
Clara backed toward the desk.
“Stay away from me.”
“Do you know what makes men like Nathaniel weak?” Victor asked. “They pretend they are
