Chapter 1 - THE MAN WITH HIS HAND IN HIS COAT
Brena understood something was wrong before Tiberio touched her arm.
The ballroom doors had barely opened.
Crystal chandeliers threw warm light over nearly four hundred guests, a string quartet played beside a wall of white roses, and waiters moved through the crowd carrying champagne beneath the gold ceiling of the Holston Grand.
Yet Tiberio stopped.
Not dramatically.
Not enough for anyone else to notice.
But Brena felt the muscles beneath his hand tighten against the small of her back.
The pale man from the lobby had entered the ballroom.
Same charcoal jacket.
Same phone.
Same right hand inside his coat pocket.
Brena kept smiling for the cameras.
“You know him?”
“No.”
“Then why are you trying to put your entire body between us?”
Tiberio’s jaw tightened.
“Keep walking.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
“Brena.”
The warning in his voice would have silenced most people.
She smiled more brightly.
“Try again.”
His eyes flicked toward her.
Then toward the man.
“Someone photographed our car leaving the penthouse this afternoon.”
Her smile nearly broke.
“You knew?”
“My security team noticed.”
“And you still brought me here?”
“You insisted on coming.”
“I insisted on attending a hospital gala. I didn’t insist on becoming target practice.”
His gray eyes hardened.
“Nothing happens to you.”
The certainty in his voice should have comforted her.
Instead, it frightened her.
Because men only made promises like that when they knew exactly how dangerous the alternative could be.
Before Brena could ask another question, an elderly surgeon approached them with his wife.
Tiberio transformed instantly.
Polite.
Controlled.
Almost charming.
He introduced Brena as his wife, listened to the surgeon discuss a new pediatric wing, and donated enough money in thirty seconds to make the man blink twice.
Brena watched him carefully.
He had two lives.
Possibly three.
Then a waiter passed.
The pale man moved.
Tiberio saw it.
His left hand came around Brena’s waist and pulled her one step backward.
The stranger removed his hand from his coat.
No gun.
No knife.
A folded envelope.
He slipped it beneath a champagne glass on an empty cocktail table.
Then he walked away.
Tiberio’s men moved immediately.
One followed the stranger.
Another blocked the corridor.
Tiberio reached the envelope before Brena could.
Her name was written across the front.
Brena Walsh.
Not Brena Valkcari.
Tiberio opened it.
His expression changed.
“What?”
He folded the paper.
“Nothing.”
Brena held out her hand.
“That expression is not nothing.”
“This isn’t the place.”
“Give it to me.”
“No.”
She looked directly into his eyes.
“Tiberio, you married me because you believed my father used people as property. Don’t make the mistake of treating me the same way.”
That landed.
She saw it.
His mouth hardened.
Then he handed her the note.
Only one sentence had been typed.
ASK YOUR HUSBAND WHO REALLY SIGNED ALIO’S PERSONAL GUARANTEE.
Brena read it twice.
Then a third time.
Her pulse changed.
“Tiberio.”
His face had become perfectly still.
“What does this mean?”
“It means someone wants to create doubt.”
“Was my father’s signature on those documents?”
“Yes.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Tiberio said nothing.
And suddenly Brena understood.
There had been another signature.
Someone else had helped authorize the financing that destroyed Alio Valkcari.
“Who?” she whispered.
Before Tiberio could answer, one of his security men approached.
“Sir.”
“What?”
“We lost him.”
Tiberio looked toward the ballroom entrance.
“How?”
“He entered the service corridor. Cameras went dark for forty-seven seconds.”
That should have been impossible inside one of Manhattan’s most secure hotels.
Brena turned the note over.
There was something handwritten on the back.
An address.
And beneath it, a time.
11:30 p.m.
Tiberio saw it.
“No.”
Brena looked at him.
“You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Then you married a very predictable hostage.”
“You are not going.”
Brena folded the note and slipped it into her clutch.
“Funny.”
“What?”
“Three days ago, you told me I was your weapon.”
Her hazel-green eyes held his.
“Now you’re afraid someone else might tell your weapon where to aim.”
May you like
And across the ballroom, a man Brena had believed was dead for nearly two years watched them from behind a mirrored pillar.
Alio Valkcari was alive.
