LOGINIris's POVThe dining room was exactly as extravagant as I had expected, which is to say it looked like someone had robbed a palace and decided to redecorate with the spoils. A chandelier dripping with crystals hung over a table long enough to seat twenty people, though only two places were set at the far end, and the candlelight flickering across the silverware gave everything a soft, almost dreamlike quality that felt entirely at odds with the fact that I was a prisoner in this house. Margaret had stopped at the door and gestured for me to enter alone, her face pale and her hands clasped tightly in front of her. "He's waiting for you," she said, and then she was gone, the door clicking shut behind her with a soft finality that made my pulse jump in my throat.I stood in the doorway for a long moment, my eyes scanning the room while my mind raced through every possible scenario. I had spent hours imagining this moment, picturing the man who had orchestrated all of this, trying to pie
Victor’s POV "His name is Adrian Cross." The analyst hesitated, glancing at Marcus before continuing. "He's twenty-eight years old. He has no criminal record and no known ties to any of your business rivals. He came into a significant inheritance about five years ago, and since then he's been quietly acquiring assets through shell companies and intermediaries. Real estate, technology firms, a few media outlets. He's very wealthy, but he keeps a very low profile." Twenty-eight. The number hit me like a fist to the sternum. He was twenty-eight years old. Younger than Marcus. Younger than me by more than decades. I had been imagining a rival my own age, someone with gray hair and decades of experience, someone who had crossed me in business and was now exacting his revenge. I had not been imagining a man who was barely out of his twenties, a man who looked like he belonged on a magazine cover rather than in the middle of a criminal investigation. "Show me." The analyst handed me
Victor's POV I stood in the corner of the basement with my arms crossed and my back pressed against the wall, watching my son do something I had spent thirty years trying and failing to teach him. The two men who had run him off the road were tied to metal chairs in the center of the room, their faces swollen and their wrists bound with zip ties that had already cut deep enough to draw blood. One of them was still bleeding from the wound Marcus had given him with the headrest, a slow trickle of red that dripped onto the concrete floor in a rhythm that matched the pounding in my temples. Marcus had been at this for almost an hour, and he hadn't raised his voice once. That was the part that kept catching me off guard. I had expected him to rage and threaten and lose control the way he always did when his emotions got the better of him, the way his mother used to when she was still alive and still felt things deeply enough to let them show. But the man standing in front of these two
Iris’s POV "You'll pay for it? On your salary? That vase was worth more than you'll make in five years." A pause, and then his voice dropped into something colder and more dangerous. "Get out of my sight before I decide to take the cost out of your hide instead of your paycheck." The stylist was trembling now, her eyes fixed on the door like she expected him to burst through at any moment. "That's Mr. Kessler," she whispered. "He's the head of security. You don't want to get on his bad side." "Is anyone on his good side?" She didn't answer, which was answer enough. The makeup artist arrived a few minutes later, her face carefully blank as she set up her supplies. If she had heard the commotion in the hallway, she gave no sign of it. She worked quickly and skillfully, applying foundation and blush and something shimmery to my eyelids, and when she was done I looked like a different person entirely. The woman in the mirror was beautiful in a way I had never been before, her eyes br
Iris’s POVI was standing at the window watching a gardener trim hedges into perfect squares when the door opened behind me and two women walked in like they owned the place. They probably did. Everyone here seemed to own the place except me. The bath had been drawn at precisely eleven in the morning, though I had stopped asking how they knew when I would be ready for it. I had stopped asking a lot of things. How they knew my dress size and my shoe size and the exact shade of green I had once told Marcus I wanted for our guest room. How they knew I took my coffee with cream and no sugar and preferred peonies to roses. How they knew the name of the obscure perfume I had worn on my wedding day and then never been able to find again. It was sitting on the vanity now in its frosted glass bottle, waiting for me like it had always been there. The two women didn't ask if I wanted a bath. They didn't ask anything. The older one, a severe woman with iron-gray hair and hands that looked stro
Marcus’s POV It wasn't a killing blow. I wasn't strong enough for that, and even now, even after everything, I wasn't sure I had it in me to take a life. But it was enough to make him choke and stagger backward, his hands flying to his neck and his eyes bulging with shock and pain. The crowbar clattered to the asphalt at his feet, and he went down on one knee with a strangled sound that was somewhere between a gasp and a scream. I was out of the car before he hit the ground. My legs were unsteady and my head was spinning from the crash, but I forced myself to keep moving because the second man was already reaching for his pistol. He was fast, faster than I expected, and his hand was on the grip before I could close the distance between us. I dove for the crowbar on the asphalt instead, my fingers closing around the cold metal just as he cleared his holster and raised the gun. The crowbar connected with his forearm before he could pull the trigger. There was a crack that echoed off
Iris's POVIt's finally the dreaded Friday. I was standing in front of my closet, staring at the armor I'd carefully selected: high-necked black blouse, long sleeves, trousers that buttoned at the waist instead of anything that flowed or teased, when my phone buzzed on the dresser.A text from Marc
Iris’s POV The mall was way too loud for a Tuesday afternoon. Music blasted from three different stores at once, a baby was screaming somewhere near the food court, and a teenager walked past me yelling into her phone about someone named Derek who had apparently "liked her story but didn't text ba
Iris’s POV For the first time in weeks, the house felt…strange. That strange quiet way that comes after a storm passes but the air still feels charged, like something might crack open again if you breathe too hard. Marcus moved around the living room, humming under his breath, flipping through
Iris’s POV His fingers tightened around my throat. “I know.” The words came out low, steady, and far too calm for the way his hands were pressing into my skin. I clawed at his wrists, my nails digging in, my body twisting beneath him as I tried to pull free. “I know what you’ve been doing.” My







