Chapter 3: The Last Dress

The syringe captured the faint light from the dashboard.

Vivienne's whole body tensed.

The man next to the driver was dressed in a dark suit, not a police uniform, and that was more alarming than necessary. He was an unremarkable face, the sort that could pass unnoticed through a crowd. That frightened her more than anything.

He smiled.

"Ms. Laurent."

The car whirled through the night.

Vivienne's shoulders flattened against the door as her cuffed wrists pressed against her chest, fingers tapping against the cold metal. Her pulse pounded louder with every heartbeat.

"You're trying to find someone," she said. "I'm a distraction."

The man raised the syringe just enough for her to see the tip.

"Somebody who wants to make things simple."

The driver didn't look back.

Vivienne's phone was still clutched in her palm, the screen dark but her fingers certain of the glass and metal rectangle. A useless thing, unless she could think of something to do with it.

Her mind raced through every possibility. The investigator had taken the folder. The police had put her in the car. Everyone had seen it.

If she disappeared, Lucien would believe she absconded. If she died, he'd think she panicked. Either way, Laurent Atelier would move on, and she would be another casualty of their war.

"No," she said, meeting the man's eyes. "You're making it harder."

The smile slid from his face.

"You really should have thought this through," he said.

"I said no."

He stepped forward.

Vivienne kicked the thin divider between the front and back seats, her heel screaming in protest. The driver swore and the car swerved, and Vivienne felt the man's hands close around her wrist but she jerked away, driving both cuffed hands into his side, knocking the syringe from his grip. For a moment, she felt a rush of triumph.

Then the man had her by the throat. Vivienne clawed at his hand, her fingers brushing against the glass window, her vision swimming with the flashes of yellow and black streetlights.

"Get her to stop," the driver growled.

Vivienne's fingers found the door handle.

It was locked.

She shot a hand toward the window control.

The man slammed her knuckles against the glass.

Her phone shot from her grip and landed beneath the seat.

"No one is looking for you," he said softly. "Your family is already burying you."

A strange calm settled over Vivienne.

Not grief, but a strange sort of relief. The faces of Adrien and Lucien and even Celeste hovered before her eyes, their expressions fixed in quiet dismay. You could lose everything, Lucien had warned. They think you've lost everything.

They thought the handcuffs were a comfort.

Vivienne relaxed her muscles just enough that the man's grip loosened. It was all the opening she needed.

She drove her knee up and into his stomach, and a startled sound escaped the man's throat as he bent over her, his hands coming off her throat. Vivienne lunged for the front seat, her fingers finding the wheel through the space between the seats.

"Stop the car," she screamed.

The driver cursed and the car veered sideways, tires screeching, horns honking, the man behind her grabbing a fistful of her hair but Vivienne held on.

"Stop!" she screamed, "Stop, damn it!"

The driver hit the brakes.

The car spun violently, throwing Vivienne against the side door, a sharp pain shooting up her arm, and then the car settled against the curb. The door flew open and the driver stumbled out, swearing.

Vivienne lurched toward the opposite door but the man in the back had caught the chain between her cuffs and was yanking her backward.

"You stupid girl," he hissed.

The back door opened.

Vivienne peered out into the night, expecting to see another car waiting, another set of men to drag her back into the dark. Instead, a woman in a charcoal coat stood just outside the car, her expression unreadable.

"Leave her," the woman said.

The man holding Vivienne laughed.

"And who are you?" he demanded.

The woman lifted a gun.

The laughter died in the man's throat.

"You have three seconds," she said.

The man shoved Vivienne toward the open back door and he and the driver were already scrambling out when the woman tossed the gun aside.

"You're not going anywhere," the man behind Vivienne said, his breath hot against her ear.

The woman's eyes were locked on the side door where the men had disappeared.

"You know who I am," Vivienne said.

The woman looked at her. "Yes."

"You know who sent you?"

The woman's jaw tightened.

"Someone your father has spent years trying to keep away from you."

Before Vivienne could ask another question, the woman shoved her toward the car. The door clicked shut behind her and the car pulled away, Vivienne watching through the rear window as the car she'd been in collided with the oncoming traffic.

Her phone was still there.

Her evidence was gone.

And whoever had sent the men knew precisely how to make her disappear.

The woman sat beside her in silence for several blocks. She was in her thirties, Vivienne thought, with dark hair pulled back from her face and a thin line of a scar running along one side of her jaw. Her coat was simple enough, but the way she held herself was not.

She kept a close eye on the rearview mirrors, watching every car that passed, every van that rumbled by on the street.

Vivienne's wrists still ached where the cuffs had dug into her skin.

"Are you going to take these off?" she asked.

The woman reached into her coat pocket and produced a small pair of keys.

"You're lucky they used standard restraints," she said.

"Lucky?"

The key turned in the lock and Vivienne's wrists fell free, the broken metal sliding off the seat between them.

"Who are you?" Vivienne asked.

"Mara."

"Mara what?"

"Mara Voss."

"And why are you helping me?"

The woman's expression didn't change.

"Because I was told you would be taken tonight if you refused to sign."

Vivienne's heart pounded.

"Who told you?"

Mara looked out the side window.

"He said you would fight."

"He?"

"You ask too many questions for anyone who just escaped a kidnapping."

"You expect me to get in a car with a stranger and stay quiet?"

"No," Mara said. "I expect you to be alive enough to be angry tomorrow."

Vivienne's breath caught in her throat. The words should have annoyed her, but they did something else to her chest, that same feeling that had swelled when she first saw Lucien's hands on her arms.

No one had asked if she would survive tonight. Not her father. Not Celeste. Not Adrien.

The car crossed the river and Vivienne watched the tower of Laurent Atelier loom on the horizon, a monument to everything that had been stolen from her.

"They framed me," she said.

"Your father is behind it."

Mara said nothing.

Vivienne turned to face her. "Is he?"

A wave of cool sadness rolled through Vivienne's veins. She had known, deep in her bones, since the moment Lucien handed her those papers. But standing here, saying it aloud, changed something.

Her father had not abandoned her. He had planned her destruction.

"What happens now?" she asked.

"That depends on if you're willing to disappear."

Vivienne stared at her.

"I'm on my way to a police station."

"No." Mara looked up at her for the first time. "You are on your way to die."

The city lights drifted across the windows as Vivienne's throat constricted.

"The men in that car were not taking you to questioning," Mara continued. "They were taking you somewhere no one would have to look. By morning, Laurent's lawyers would say you fled custody. Maybe they would have found your body. Maybe they wouldn't have."

Vivienne's fingers curled into fists.

"What does your employer want from me?"

Mara hesitated.

"Nothing tonight."

"That is not an answer."

"It is the truth."

Vivienne let out a bitter laugh. "I've had enough of that."

The car rolled into an underground parking structure. The gate slid open and they pulled in.

"This is where I get out," Mara said,

Vivienne's body tensed. "Get out?"

"You are being moved."

"By who?"

Mara opened Vivienne's door.

A man waited on the other side. He was tall, dressed in black, rain darkening the shoulders of his coat, and had the bearing of a man who didn't carry a weapon out of necessity. Everyone in the financial world knew who he was. Silas Crowe.

The man who bought up failing companies and impossible debts and secrets people thought they'd buried for good.

The man Lucien once referred to as a scavenger.

Silas looked at Vivienne's hands, her wrists still bruised and swollen. His expression didn't change.

"Your father just made a very expensive mistake."

Vivienne climbed out of the car slowly. She had seen Silas Crowe only once before, at a charity auction a couple years ago. He'd stood across the room from Lucien, refusing to shake his hand while every other guest pretended not to notice the insult.

Tonight there was no audience.

Just darkness.

Just rain splashing against the concrete overhead.

Just a man whose name was synonymous with ruined fortunes and enemies long gone.

"What do you want?" Vivienne asked.

Silas's eyes lifted to meet hers.

"Tonight?" he said.

He reached into his coat and withdrew a piece of paper, the edges charred away.

Vivienne's breath caught in her throat. One of her sketches. Not a fashion sketch, but one of her pages of numbers. The account numbers she'd copied down before the gala.

"How?" she asked.

"Because I've been waiting for Laurent Atelier to make its move."

Vivienne drew closer. "My father tried to have me killed."

"Yes."

The word was calm, certain.

Vivienne's stomach twisted. "Adrien knew."

Silas's eyes darkened. "Yes."

Her fingers curled into fists.

"What do you want from me?" she asked.

Silas studied her for a long moment.

Then he gave her the only answer that could have frightened her more than a lie.

"The truth about your mother."

Before Vivienne could respond, headlights glared through the parking garage. A car rolled slowly down the ramp. Then another.

Mara's hand moved toward her coat.

Silas didn't move at all. His gaze stayed on Vivienne.

"Get in the car," he said.

"Who are they?"

"Men your father sent to finish what he started."

The cars stopped.

Doors opened.

And one by one, armed men climbed into the underground garage.