All Chapters of The Contract She Signed in Her Sister's Name : Chapter 1 - Chapter 6

The gates of the Kane estate didn't swing open. They separated, black iron parting like something built to let very little back out.Sofia kept her face angled toward the glass as the limousine climbed. The road hugged the cliffs above Cascais, the same coastline where tourists lined up every summer to watch the Atlantic hurl itself into the blowhole at Boca do Inferno. Even through sealed windows she could hear the low concussion of surf against rock. It was a sound that never fully stopped in this part of Portugal.The house came into view at the top of the drive.White stone. Dark clay roof tiles. A footprint wide enough to swallow a city block, built into the cliff edge, a house that had outgrown the need to look like a home.Pine trees lined the last stretch of gravel, bent sideways by decades of Atlantic wind. Past them the estate's private coastline dropped straight into rock and foam, with no beach to soften the fall. Sofia had studied satellite images of this property for mon

The grandfather clock in the gallery struck two.Sofia stood at the center of her new bedroom, unmoving. She'd changed into a slate-gray silk robe, chosen specifically because it made no sound when she walked. Her hair sat pulled back tight from her face, the small pale scar above her left eyebrow exposed to the low amber light bleeding in from the corridor.She lifted the lock-picking kit off the velvet armchair and closed her fist around it.My private study is off-limits. Adrian's warning from the limousine looped in her head like a dare she hadn't accepted yet. He'd claimed a late call with the Singapore office, but twenty minutes ago the low hum of the estate's generator had dropped a register. It was the sound of the main house switching to night reserve. Adrian was either asleep now or he'd finally left whatever room he'd been guarding.Sofia slipped out into the east wing corridor.The house wore a different face at night. Gone was the clinical white glare of the dinner hour.

The footsteps stopped outside Sofia's door. She'd only just closed the courier envelope back inside its plastic sleeve when the sound reached her, heavy and unhurried on the corridor's thick carpet. She shoved it under her pillow and pressed her back to the headboard. She didn't breathe. Her fingers found the tension wrench in her robe pocket and closed around it. The handle turned, slow and deliberate. The door swung open. The figure in the frame wasn't Priscilla, and it wasn't Theo. For half a second Sofia's mind ran through every worse possibility before landing on the one actually standing there. Adrian stood in the doorway. He'd changed out of his suit into a plain black shirt, sleeves pushed to the elbow. His hair was still damp from a shower. In the amber hallway light, his face looked carved from slate. "You're awake," he said. His voice came out low and rough, nothing like the flat corporate tone he'd used in the limousine. "You didn't knock." Sofia kept her tone flat