Chapter 12

POV: Sloane

"You're tracking the wrong sister," Sloane said, stepping into the dim corridor outside Bridget's bedroom.

Bridget froze halfway down the stairs, her fingers gripping the banister. She wasn't wearing the red dress anymore. She was in an oversized gray sweater that made her look small, almost fragile, if Sloane didn't know better. "What are you doing here?"

"I live here when I'm not playing the part of Declan's perfect acquisition," Sloane said, walking down the steps until she stood one tier above her sister. "The phone from Harbor Row. The one registered under my name. Who gave it to you, Bridget?"

Bridget looked toward the kitchen, where Jamie's pencil was still scratching against the wooden table. "Lower your voice."

"No," Sloane said, her voice dropping into that flat, dangerous rhythm she had used in Declan's office. "The time for lowering voices ended when Declan started looking at the garage logs. He knows the car left the perimeter. He knows about the transit tolls."

Bridget’s mouth thinned into a hard line. "He doesn't know anything unless you told him."

"He has the wire transfer receipt from the Boston account," Sloane said. "The one you left on his blotter."

Bridget pulled her hand back from the rail as if it were hot. "I didn't give him that."

"Don't lie to me," Sloane whispered, moving down the final step until their shoulders almost touched. "You left it where he would find it because you thought it would force him to look at me instead of you. But Declan doesn't just look where you point, Bridget. He looks at everything."

"I was trying to fix it," Bridget said, her eyes gating toward the front door. "The man from the transit fund... he said if I could get the compliance codes from Declan’s laptop during the dinner, the debt would disappear. The whole thing. Father’s notes, the liquidation orders on the house. All of it."

"Who was the man, Bridget?"

"I don't know his name," Bridget said, her voice rising slightly before she caught herself. "He called from a blocked line. He told me to meet his driver at Harbor Row. He said he had a phone for me to use so Declan’s security team wouldn't trace the pings to the house."

Sloane felt a cold weight settle behind her ribs. "And you registered it under my name."

"I used the foundation card," Bridget said, looking away. "It was the only one that didn't have an active freeze on it. I didn't think he’d check the toll logs."

"He checks every line on the balance sheet," Sloane said. "He’s an acquisitions man, Bridget. You gave him a reason to audit our entire lives."

The front door clicked open behind them.

Preston stood in the entryway, his long wool coat damp from the fog outside. He didn't look at Bridget. His focus was entirely on Sloane. "Mrs. Shaw. The car is waiting."

Sloane didn't turn around immediately. She looked at the back of Bridget’s head, at the stiff line of her sister's shoulders. "Is Jamie’s detail outside, Preston?"

"The nurse arrived ten minutes ago, ma'am," Preston said. "Mr. Shaw requested your presence at the tower before the Asian markets open."

"Tell him I’ll be there in twenty minutes," Sloane said.

"He didn't give us twenty minutes, ma'am," Preston said, his tone perfectly level, perfectly empty. "He’s on the line now."

Sloane walked past her sister without another word, her boots clicking against the old parquet floor of the foyer. The air outside was freezing, the mist rolling off the river and clinging to the iron gates of the estate. She slid into the back seat of the sedan, the door closing with that heavy, vacuum-sealed thud that belonged to Declan’s world.

The tablet on the central armrest was already active. Declan’s face looked out from the high-definition screen, his desk lamp casting long, sharp shadows across his chin.

"You took forty minutes to clear the house," Declan said.

"I was speaking with my sister," Sloane said, pulling her coat around her knees.

"Bridget is no longer the primary variable," Declan said, his fingers tapping against the edge of his keyboard on the other end of the line. "The Harbor Row transponder didn't just ping the foundation account, Sloane. It downloaded the three-year forecast for the Vance logistics merger at two in the morning."

Sloane went cold. "I didn't touch that file."

"The authorization code came from your terminal," he said. "The one in the secondary residence. The password was changed four hours before the gala."

"Bridget was in the room," Sloane said, her voice dropping. "She must have seen me enter the key when I was fixing the charity numbers."

"The system doesn't record who was standing in the room," Declan said, his voice flattening into that rhythmic, icy clarity. "It records the signature. And right now, the state transit board has an anonymous tip that the Vance margins were altered by a member of the Madden family to protect an offshore asset."

Sloane leaned forward, her hand resting on the leather of the front seat. "Jamie's clinic."

"The Boston account was registered as an offshore medical trust," Declan said. "If the board links that twenty-three thousand dollars to the Vance leak, the whole merger is locked in probate for six months. I lose the board seats by Friday."

"I didn't give her the files, Declan."

"Then you let her take them," he said, turning off the video feed. "The car will bring you to the lower level. Don't use the main elevator."

The line went dark.

Sloane sat back against the leather, watching the lights of the city blur into long, white streaks across the wet window pane. Her breathing slowed to a deliberate pace. She reached into her pocket, her fingers brushing the cold metal of her watch face—the small, round gold one her father had given her for her sixteenth birthday. The leather band was worn, the buckle slightly loose.

She pulled it out, checking the time. Eleven-forty-two.

The car descended into the private garage of Shaw Tower two minutes later, bypassing the security gates with a pre-cleared signal from Preston’s terminal. When the door opened, Declan was already waiting by the service lift. He wasn't wearing his jacket. His white shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, his sleeves rolled tightly above his elbows.

"Give me your hand," he said as she stepped onto the concrete.

Sloane blinked. "What?"

"Your hand, Sloane," he repeated, his voice dropping into a harsh whisper as the lift doors opened behind them.

She reached out, her fingers cold against his palm. Declan didn't squeeze her hand; he turned her wrist over, his thumb brushing the pale skin where her watch usually sat.

The skin was bare. The leather band was still in her coat pocket.

Declan looked down at her bare wrist for three long seconds, his jaw set so tightly the muscle near his ear twitched. "Where is the gold piece?"

"It’s in my bag," she lied. "The clasp was slipping."

"Preston," Declan called out without looking back.

Preston stepped out of the lift, a printed high-resolution still from the traffic camera held between his fingers. He handed it to Declan, who held it three inches from Sloane's face.

The image was grainy, distorted by the wet windshield of the idling sedan at Harbor Row. But the arm extending from the driver's side door was clear. The coat sleeve was dark wool—the exact shade of Sloane's gray coat. And on the wrist was a small, round gold watch with a thin leather band.

"That’s my coat," Sloane whispered, her posture stiffening under the glare. "Bridget wore it. She took it from the hall closet because her red one was too visible."

"The camera didn't catch the red dress, Sloane," Declan said, his voice dropping until it was almost entirely gone. "It caught the coat. It caught the watch. And the phone used to access the Vance server was purchased at the corner kiosk three minutes before this frame was taken."

"I was at the tower until nine," she said, her voice shaking. "You saw me."

"I saw you until nine," Declan said, stepping closer until she could feel the heat radiating from his chest. "But the log shows you cleared the executive elevator at nine-fifteen. You had two hours before the server d******d started."

"You think I did this?" she asked, her eyes turning dark with something older than anger. "After everything I did at that table? After I saved your executive from Marcus Webb?"

"I think you're smart enough to create a distraction when you're about to move a large amount of capital," Declan said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his private phone, turning the screen toward her.

The display showed an incoming text message from an unregistered number, sent forty seconds ago.

The sister is the shield. The wife has the keys.

Attached to the text was a single image file—a scanned copy of Sloane's signature on the Vance compliance revision from Tuesday morning, side-by-side with the digital signature that had unlocked the logistics server at midnight.

They matched perfectly. Every loop, every slant, every broken line in the ink.

"I didn't sign that," Sloane said, her voice dropping into a register he had never heard from her before—hollow, thin, completely broken. "Declan, look at the date on the secondary log. I was with Jamie."

"The log says you were at the harbor," Declan said, his hand closing around her upper arm with a grip that was entirely solid, entirely territorial. He didn't pull her toward the lift; he held her there on the concrete, under the white fluorescent lights, while the sound of the city hummed through the pillars around them. "And the transit board just called for an emergency session at midnight."

Sloane looked from the screen to his eyes, searching for the calculation, the strategic distance he always carried. It wasn't there. There was only the cold, hard certainty of a man who had finally found the gap in his wall.

"You're going to give them the wire receipt," she whispered.

Declan didn't look away. "I’m going to give them the person who signed it."