Chapter 3

The morning light spilled soft and gold across the breakfast table at Hayes Estate, catching the crystal glasses and the silver trays no one had bothered to touch properly. Grace sat with a cup of coffee cradled between her hands, still in her silk robe, while Lucas buttered a piece of toast across from her with the unhurried ease of a man who had nowhere urgent to be.

A soft knock came at the door before one of the maids stepped inside, her eyes lowered.

"Ma'am," she said carefully, "Mr Hayes is refusing to eat again this morning."

Grace didn't even look up from her coffee. "That poor thing," she said, the words dripping with false sympathy. "He should be grateful someone's still bothering to feed him at all."

The maid hesitated, unsure whether that was meant for her to respond to, then simply nodded and slipped back out of the room.

Lucas watched her go before setting his toast down. "When exactly are we ending that little burden," he asked, voice low, casual, as though he were discussing nothing more than a delayed shipment.

"When we have full access to everything," Grace said, finally lifting her eyes to him, a slow smile curving across her lips. "And that will be very soon."

Lucas leaned back in his chair, turning his glass slowly between his fingers. "I was thinking about something yesterday," he said. "What if Liana is still alive. We never actually found a body of hers."

Grace laughed, sharp and immediate, the sound cutting cleanly through the quiet of the room. "That's not possible, Lucas."

He laughed along with her after a moment, shaking his head at himself. "What the hell was I even thinking," he muttered, reaching for his coffee again as though the thought had never crossed his mind at all.

Grace checked the delicate watch on her wrist and rose from her seat with a small sigh. "It's getting late. I need to leave for a meeting." She crossed to him, pressed a kiss to his forehead, lingering there just a moment longer than necessary. "Don't wait up."

"I should be heading out too," Lucas said, standing and straightening his jacket. "Board meeting."

They left the room together, laughing softly about something neither of them would remember by noon.

Liana sat upright in the bed, sunlight cutting thin lines across the blanket through half closed curtains, when Oliver stepped into the room and pulled a chair close to her side without asking permission. He didn't sit the way most people did, easy and loose. He sat like a man who was always half ready to stand again.

"You said you'd tell me," she said quietly, before he could speak first. "What happened to me."

He studied her for a long moment, as if deciding how much of the truth she could carry so soon after waking. Then he nodded once.

"Tell me first," he said. "What you remember."

Liana's fingers curled into the blanket. "I left work. My usual driver wasn't available, so Grace called and told me she'd arranged someone else to pick me up." Her brow furrowed as the memory sharpened, piece by piece. "I got in the car. We drove for a while, longer than usual, and I remember feeling tired. So tired I couldn't keep my eyes open, even though I wasn't tired at all before that." She looked up at him. "Then nothing. Just darkness, until I woke up here."

"You were drugged," Oliver said simply. "Somewhere along that drive, whatever was in that car put you to sleep."

Her breath caught. "How do you know that."

"Because of where I found you." His voice stayed level, careful, but something behind his eyes hardened. "My convoy was passing near the river outside the city. One of my men saw something in the water. When we pulled you out, you'd been shot. You were barely breathing."

Liana's hand rose slowly to her own side, as though she could feel the wound through the blanket, through the weeks of healing, through everything that had happened while she was unconscious to it all.

"Shot," she whispered.

"You're lucky to be alive," Oliver said. "If we hadn't passed that road when we did, you wouldn't be."

She sat with that for a long moment, the weight of it settling slow and heavy in her chest, before something colder occurred to her, something that made her stomach twist.

"That driver," she said. "He wasn't my usual driver. Grace told me he'd been arranged. She said my car had broken down."

Oliver watched her carefully, letting her get there on her own.

"Someone arranged that car," she said slowly, the realization crawling up her spine. "Someone wanted me gone that night. It wasn't random."

"No," Oliver said. "It wasn't random at all. This was planned, carefully, by someone who knew exactly where you'd be and exactly when."

Liana felt the blood drain from her face. "Who."

Oliver leaned forward slightly, his eyes steady on hers, his voice dropping low enough that it felt like the words themselves might be dangerous just to say out loud.

"That," he said, "is what I'm still trying to find out. But whoever it was, Liana, they're close to you. Close enough to know your schedule. Close enough to know exactly which car you'd trust."

Liana's mind raced through every face she loved, every person she trusted, searching desperately for someone who didn't belong on that list, and finding, with a horror she couldn't yet put into words, that she couldn't rule anyone out at all.