Chapter 5

​Isabella POV

​The air in the safe house has turned from cedar-scented comfort to a tomb-like chill. I am frozen, my hand still clutching the velvet box that held the sapphire.

​Catherine Sterling is slumped in her chair. Her eyes are closed, her chest rising and falling in the shallow rhythm of a forced sleep. The silver cane she leaned on has fallen to the rug with a dull thud.

​The man standing over her is a ghost.

​I’ve seen his face in the oil paintings at the Vane estate—portraits of the "founders" and their associates. This is Silas Sterling. Liam’s uncle. The man my father claimed had died in a tragic boating accident a decade ago. But the man in front of me isn't a memory. He is a tall, skeletal figure with eyes that look like burnt-out coals.

​"You have your mother’s flair for the dramatic, Isabella," Silas says. His voice sounds like dry leaves skittering across pavement. "That broadcast was a bold move. A suicidal one, but bold."

​"What did you do to her?" I whisper, gesturing toward Catherine.

​"A mild sedative. She was always too fragile for the real work," he sneers, stepping over the cane. He looks at the computer screen where the "Princess Codes" are still glowing in lines of green text. "The Medusa encryption. My brother and Arthur thought they could bury it with me. They thought they could build a world on my brilliance while I rotted."

​He turns his gaze to me. "But Liam... my dear nephew is a sentimental fool. He thought he was protecting his mother. He didn't realize he was just keeping the prize warm for me."

​"Liam will kill you," I say, my voice steadying. My "calculator" brain is already searching for exits. The kitchen door is ten feet away. The balcony is twenty.

​Silas laughs, a harsh, hacking sound. "Liam is currently surrounded by police and lawyers. By the time he realizes the 'uncle' he mourned is the one holding the leash, I’ll have the Medusa keys. And you, my dear, will be the leverage that keeps Arthur Vane from sending his dogs after me."

​I realize then that I am not just a weapon for Liam. I am the ultimate bargaining chip in a war between two generations of monsters.

​I don't wait for him to move. I grab the heavy glass decanter from the side table and hurl it at the computer monitor. If I can't have the codes, neither can he.

​Crash.

​The screen shatters. Sparks fly. The room plunges into a dim, emergency-light red.

​"You little brat!" Silas lunges.

​I dive under his arm, my silk dress snagging on the corner of the desk. I don't stop. I scramble toward the balcony. I don't have a plan, only the instinct of a girl who has spent her whole life learning how to disappear.

​I reach the sliding glass door and shove it open. The wind from the city heights hits me, cold and unforgiving.

​"There is nowhere to go, Isabella!" Silas shouts, his footsteps heavy behind me. "We are fifty stories up!"

​I look over the railing. The city is a sea of lights. Below, the Vane District is a grid of gold. I am trapped.

​But then, I see it. A maintenance cradle—the kind used by window washers—is docked just three feet below the balcony level.

​I don't think. I climb over the railing.

​Liam POV

​I am driving like a man possessed. The gray sedan is gone; I’ve taken my black Aventador, weaving through traffic with a recklessness that would have the police on my tail if they weren't all busy at the office.

​My heart is a frantic hammer against my ribs.

​Silas.

​I grew up believing my uncle was a martyr. I believed my father’s brother was the genius who was stepped on by the Vanes. I’ve spent years funding a "ghost hunt" for his killers.

​I was wrong.

​My phone pings. It’s a notification from the safe house security system. Power Failure. Hardware Damage detected.

​"Isabella, stay alive," I growl, flooring the accelerator. "Just stay alive."

​I reach the complex in record time. I don't wait for the elevator. I take the stairs, my lungs burning, my vision tunneling. I burst into the penthouse, my hand reaching for the silent alarm in my pocket.

​The room is a wreck. The smell of ozone from the smashed computer fills the air. My mother is still in her chair, breathing, thank God.

​But the balcony door is swinging in the wind.

​I rush to the edge. I see Silas. He is leaning over the railing, reaching down with a snarl.

​"Give it to me!" he screams.

​I look down. Isabella is standing in a maintenance cradle. She is swaying in the wind, her fingers white as she grips the metal cables. She is holding something in her hand—a small, silver flash drive.

​She must have copied the files before she smashed the screen.

​"Silas!" I roar.

​My uncle spins around. His face twists into a mask of faux-sorrow. "Liam. My favorite nephew. You’ve grown up to be quite the businessman. A shame you inherited your mother’s heart. It makes you weak."

​"Step away from the ledge," I say, my voice vibrating with a lethal edge. "Now."

​"Or what? You'll call the police? They’re already looking for a kidnapper, Liam. One more body won't change your sentence."

​Silas turns back to the cradle. He pulls a small remote from his pocket.

​"This cradle is remote-controlled, Liam. One button, and it drops five hundred feet to the pavement. Tell her to throw the drive up to me, or she becomes a red smudge on the sidewalk."

​I look at Isabella. She is looking at me. Her hair is whipped by the wind, her red dress torn. She looks terrified, but her eyes... her eyes are still cold. Still calculating.

​She looks at the drive. Then she looks at the drop.

​"Liam!" she shouts over the wind. "The encryption isn't in the drive! It’s in the sapphire! The setting is the physical key!"

​Silas freezes. He looks at her neck. It’s empty.

​"Where is it?" Silas screams.

​Isabella looks at me. She opens her hand. The sapphire is gone.

​"I dropped it," she says. Her voice is calm. "It’s falling, Silas. If you want the Vane Empire, you’d better start climbing."

​Silas looks over the edge, a primal scream of greed escaping his throat. In that second of distraction, I lunge.

​I don't hit him. I don't have to. I grab the railing and vault over, landing in the cradle with Isabella. The metal groans under the extra weight.

​"Liam!" she gasps, throwing her arms around me.

​"I’ve got you," I whisper, pulling her into my chest.

​Above us, Silas is frantic. He isn't looking at us. He is staring at the dark street below, searching for the blue glint of a stone that doesn't exist.

​"You lied," I whisper into Isabella's hair.

​"I’m a Vane," she breathes. "I’m a very good liar."

​But then, the cradle jerks.

​Silas looks down at us, his eyes wide and manic. He holds up the remote.

​"If I can't have the key," he says, "then no one gets the weapon."

​He smashes the remote against the stone railing.

​The cables snap.

​Isabella POV

​The world falls.

​The sensation of weightlessness is sickening. The wind screams in my ears. I cling to Liam, my face buried in his sweater. I expect the end. I expect the darkness.

​But the cradle doesn't hit the ground.

​With a bone-jarring jolt, the emergency brakes engage. We are dangling at the twentieth floor, swinging violently against the side of the building. The metal screeches, the remaining cables fraying.

​"Don't look down," Liam says, his voice strained. He is holding onto the top rail with one hand and me with the other. "Isabella, look at me."

​I look up. His face is inches from mine. Even in the face of death, he is beautiful.

​"The sapphire," he whispers. "Where is it?"

​I reach into the hidden pocket I sewed into the lining of the red dress. I pull out the stone.

​"I didn't drop it," I say. "I knew he wouldn't check."

​Liam lets out a short, breathy laugh. "You're a terrifying woman."

​"I learned from the best."

​We hang there, suspended between life and death. Above us, the sirens are getting louder. Below us, a crowd is gathering.

​"Liam," I say, my voice trembling. "If we get out of this... if we actually win..."

​"We will win," he says firmly.

​"What happens to 'Bella'?"

​Liam looks at me, and for the first time, there is no revenge in his eyes. There is no business. There is only a man looking at a woman.

​"Bella stays," he says. "Because Liam Sterling doesn't want an heiress. He wants the girl who almost burned his kitchen down."

​Suddenly, a flashlight beams down from the balcony above.

​"Isabella Vane!" a voice booms. It isn't the police. It’s a voice I haven't heard in years.

​It’s my mother.

​She is standing on the balcony, flanked by men in tactical gear. Silas is nowhere to be seen.

​"Isabella, darling," she calls out, her voice cold and perfect. "Give the stone to the gentlemen. Your father is waiting."

​My heart turns to lead.

​Liam looks up, his jaw tightening. "Eleanor Vane. I thought you were in a 'wellness retreat' in Switzerland."

​"I was," she says, leaning over the railing. "Until I realized my daughter was about to hand the keys to the kingdom to a Sterling. Now, Isabella. The stone. Or I tell the men to cut the last cable."

I look at the sapphire in my hand. I look at Liam.

​My mother doesn't want to save me. She’s the one who sent Silas. She’s the one who has been pulling the strings all along.

​I realize then that the war hasn't even begun. My father was just the distraction. My mother is the true Queen.

​And she’s holding the scissors.