Chapter 1
The man across the ballroom smiled as if he had been waiting eight years to watch me recognize him.
For one impossible second, the chaos around us disappeared.
No screaming guests.
No shattered glass.
No security men dragging the gunman to the floor.
No Dominic Mercer holding me against his chest while blood soaked through his tuxedo.
There was only that face.
Older now.
Sharper.
A pale scar ran from his left temple to his jaw, but I knew the tilt of his mouth. I knew the cold amusement in his eyes.
Elias Vale.
My brother.
My dead brother.
“Mara?” Dominic’s voice sounded far away.
That was not my name.
Elias knew it.
His lips moved again.
“Amelia.”
My real name struck harder than the bullets had.
Eight years vanished.
I was twenty again, standing barefoot in a burning house while Elias screamed at me to run.
Then came the explosion.
Then came the body they told me belonged to him.
Then came the men who spent years searching for me.
I must have made a sound because Dominic’s grip tightened.
“Who are you looking at?”
I tried to raise my hand.
Couldn’t.
Elias lifted two fingers in a casual salute.
Then a wall of Mercer security moved between us.
When I looked again, he was gone.
“Dominic,” I whispered.
His face blurred above mine.
“Don’t talk.”
“He’s alive.”
“Who?”
I tried to answer.
Instead, darkness swallowed me.
I woke to the steady electronic pulse of a heart monitor.
For several seconds, I did not know where I was.
Then pain answered the question.
My shoulder burned. My ribs felt crushed beneath a metal band. Breathing came shallowly, carefully, each inhale pulling against stitches somewhere beneath the bandages wrapped around my chest.
I opened my eyes.
This was not a hospital.
The room was too beautiful.
Cream walls. Dark wood. Tall windows hidden behind heavy curtains. Medical equipment had been arranged beside an enormous bed that probably cost more than every apartment I had rented in eight years combined.
Blackthorne House.
I was still at the estate.
A doctor sat nearby reading from a tablet. He noticed me immediately.
“Don’t move.”
My throat felt scraped raw. “Caleb?”
“Alive. Uninjured.”
My eyes closed.
The relief hurt almost as badly as my wounds.
“The bullets?”
“Three entry wounds,” the doctor said. “One through the upper shoulder. One lodged near your left rib and was removed. The third passed through soft tissue. You lost a dangerous amount of blood.”
“How long?”
“Thirty-six hours.”
I stared at him.
Thirty-six hours.
Elias could be anywhere.
I tried to sit up.
Pain exploded through me.
The doctor swore and pushed me gently back.
“You tear those sutures and Mr. Mercer will blame me personally.”
“I need to leave.”
“No.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand that you were shot three times.”
“The man—”
The door opened.
The doctor stopped speaking.
Dominic Mercer entered.
He was wearing black trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms. No jacket. No tie. His hair looked as if he had dragged his hands through it repeatedly.
I had never seen him disordered before.
I had never even seen him tired.
Now he looked like a man who had spent thirty-six hours arguing with death.
His gaze moved over me once, registering every monitor and bandage.
Then he looked at the doctor.
“Out.”
The doctor hesitated.
Dominic said nothing else.
The doctor left.
The door closed.
Silence settled between us.
I expected gratitude.
Or interrogation.
Possibly both.
Instead Dominic walked to the chair beside the bed and sat down.
“Caleb wants to see you.”
“I want to see him.”
“No.”
My eyes narrowed.
Something almost resembling amusement touched his face.
“You’re lying there with three bullet wounds and you’re already giving me that look.”
“What look?”
“The one that says you intend to ignore everything I say.”
“I work for you. I’m practiced.”
His expression changed.
The small trace of warmth disappeared.
“You don’t work for me anymore.”
Fear moved through me.
“Why?”
“Because housekeepers don’t usually identify dead men at assassination attempts.”
My pulse quickened.
Dominic noticed.
Of course he did.
“The ballroom cameras recorded everything,” he continued. “Including you looking directly at a man near the west doors seconds before you lost consciousness.”
I said nothing.
“He disappeared before my people locked down the grounds.”
My fingers curled into the sheets.
Dominic leaned forward.
“And according to two witnesses, he called you Amelia.”
The monitor betrayed me.
My heartbeat spiked.
Dominic looked toward it.
Then back at me.
“Mara Ellis doesn’t exist.”
May you like
The words were quiet.
That made them worse.
