The Walk Out

The car didn't stop.

Eliora took a step back, her bare feet cold against the stone. The headlights kept coming, slow and steady, cutting through the dark toward the front drive.

"Eliora!"

She spun around. Caius was jogging toward her from the terrace, his tie was loose and his face still red from the scene she'd just made.

"Eliora, wait. Please."

She turned back toward the car. It had stopped now, thirty feet away, engine still running. No one got out.

"There's a car," she said, her voice unsteady. "It's been sitting there. Watching."

Caius followed her gaze and frowned. "It's probably just a guest's driver."

"No driver waits with his lights off in the dark for twenty minutes."

"You're shaken up. That's understandable, after tonight." He reached for her arm. "Let me take you home. We can talk once you've calmed down."

Eliora pulled away. "There's nothing to talk about. And don't tell me to calm down."

"I made a mistake."

"You made a choice." Her voice cracked, but she kept going. "Mistakes are accidents, Caius. You had to walk down a hallway. Open a door. Take off your jacket. None of that happens by accident."

"I love you. That hasn't changed."

"Then you don't understand what the word means." She wiped her eyes, angry at the tears, angry at him for causing them. "I gave you three years. I gave you my best friend's trust. And you gave me a locked door and a bad excuse."

"Let me at least call you a car."

"I've been alone plenty of nights in my life." She glanced past him, back toward the terrace, where guests were already spilling out early, phones lit up in the dark. The scandal was moving faster than she was. "I think I can manage one more."

She turned and walked toward the courtyard before he could argue, before her voice could break a second time.

The courtyard was quieter than the terrace, ringed with old trees, lit only by small lights along the ground. Eliora stood at the center of it, breathing hard, trying to make her legs stop shaking.

It should have felt like freedom, walking away from him. Instead it felt like standing alone in an open field with nowhere to hide.

She pulled out her phone to call Camille. Her hands shook too badly to unlock the screen. She tried twice. On the third try, it worked.

That was when she noticed the car had followed her.

It sat now at the far edge of the courtyard, headlights off, engine running low. No plates she could see. No driver visible through the dark glass.

Tonight, every other car belonged to a guest. A driver stood by each car, the license plates were visible, and nothing was hidden. This car was different. It just waited.

Eliora's steps slowed.

She thought back to the sound she'd heard earlier, right after she left the terrace. She'd assumed it was nothing. A guest leaving early.

But guests didn't sit in the dark with their lights off for twenty minutes before there was any reason to leave.

Someone had been waiting. Before Aveline. Before the study door. Before any of it.

That's not possible, she told herself. No one could have known tonight would go wrong.

But the fear settled into her stomach anyway, cold and heavy, older than tonight somehow. She hadn't felt this kind of fear in a long time.

She backed away from the car and turned toward the front gate instead, toward the lit entrance where valets and departing guests offered at least the feeling of safety in numbers.

She didn't get three steps.

"Miss Aster."

The voice came from behind her, low and unfamiliar. Eliora's whole body went stiff before she even turned around.

A man stood near the trees. Dark suit. Earpiece. The kind of stillness that came from training, not nerves.

"I don't know you," she said, proud of how steady her voice came out.

"No," he agreed. "You don't."

She glanced toward the entrance lights, thirty yards away, close enough that a scream should carry. She started walking that way, faster now.

He didn't follow her. That should have made her feel better.

It didn't. Because behind her, the car's engine changed. No longer idling. Rolling forward now, slow and deliberate, cutting the angle between her and the light in a way that wasn't an accident at all.

"Eliora?" Camille's voice called out, distant, from somewhere near the villa's entrance. "Where did you go?"

Eliora opened her mouth to answer. Before she could, the car rolled to a stop directly between her and the entrance.

For one long second, nothing happened. No voices. No movement. Just the low hum of the engine and her own uneven breathing.

Then both back doors swung open at once.

Two men stepped out. Both dressed in dark suits. Both moving with the same trained calm as the first man behind her.

"Get in the car," one of them said. Flat. Cold. Not a request.

Eliora stumbled back. "Who are you? What do you want?"

"Last chance," he said. "Get in the car."

"No." Her voice shook, but she didn't move. "Help! Someone—"

A hand closed over her mouth before she could finish the word.

She bit down hard. The man cursed and pulled back for half a second, long enough for her to scream again.

"Someone help me!"

A second man grabbed her from behind, one arm locking around her waist. She kicked back. Her heel caught his shin. He grunted but didn't let go.

"Hold her still," the first man snapped.

Eliora twisted her body, clawing at the arm around her. Nothing in her whole life had prepared her for this. There was no calm way to survive being dragged toward a car in the dark.

The first man stepped closer. His eyes weren't on her purse. They weren't on the earrings she wore.

They were on her neck.

"Where is it?" he asked.

Eliora froze despite the panic. "What?"

"The necklace. Where is it."

Her hand went straight to her throat, to the small silver chain she always wore. His eyes followed the movement.

"There." His voice sharpened. "Get it off her. Now."

This wasn't a robbery. It had never been a robbery. Someone wanted a plain, cheap necklace badly enough to send men after her at her own wedding, and none of it made sense at all.

The man holding her forced her head sideways, fingers reaching for the chain. She thrashed, digging her nails into his wrist, drawing blood. He hissed but didn't loosen his grip.

Eliora stomped down on his foot with everything she had.

He yelped. His grip slipped, just for a second. She tore free and ran, blind, toward the light, toward the sound of the party still going on like nothing was wrong.

She didn't get far.

A hand closed around her arm and yanked her back. She screamed again, and this time no one covered her mouth fast enough to stop the sound from carrying across the courtyard.

"Eliora!"

The shout cut through the noise, deep and sharp. She didn't know the voice. She was too busy fighting to think about who it belonged to.

Then everything happened at once.

Shapes moved out of the dark near the trees, fast and quiet, closing in from every side. She heard a grunt. A body hitting the ground. A sound she didn't want to think too hard about.

The hand around her arm let go.

Eliora spun around, out of breath, trying to make sense of what was happening in front of her. Four men had already surrounded her attackers. One went down hard, pinned to the ground. The other tried to run and didn't make it three steps.

"Is she hurt?" a voice barked.

"I'm fine," Eliora said, though her voice came out thin and shaking. "I'm fine, I just—"

Her legs gave out under her.

Someone caught her before she hit the ground. Strong arms. Steady. Nothing like the hands that had grabbed her a moment ago. She looked up, bracing for another stranger.

She found a man she had only seen once tonight, standing quietly at the edge of a crowd that no longer existed.

Severin Virelli.