Sophie glanced at the blade, then at Dominic.

Her father’s countenance was impenetrable.

That seemed to wound her more than hostility would have.

Grace picked up on it.

She softened her tone. “You don’t have to trust him right now. You don’t even have to trust me. You just have to trust your own feet. They deserve not to bleed.”

Sophie swallowed.

For a moment, the world stood still.

Then she murmured so softly Grace nearly missed the words.

“She said not to trust the man with the mint.”

Grace’s spine went rigid.

“What?”

Sophie’s expression shuttered instantly, as if she had whispered a forbidden secret. She shoved the knife toward Grace, handle first.

Grace took it without trembling.

“Good choice,” she remarked, maintaining her steady voice.

Dominic breathed out as if he had been suffocating for years.

Grace stood up and set the knife on a neighboring table behind her. Then she swept the glass away with her shoe, creating a narrow lane, and offered a folded white napkin.

“Your Majesty.”

Sophie climbed down from the tabletop.

She did not grasp Grace’s hand.

But she followed her to a corner booth.

Dominic observed them from across the expanse of the restaurant.

For the first time that night, he appeared less like a kingpin and more like a man who had watched a locked vault open from within.

The envelope was delivered the following afternoon.

Grace discovered it in her locker at the conclusion of another double shift, shoved between her second-hand coat and a pile of overdue notices she had been too intimidated to open.

No name.

No postage.

Only heavy cream stationery sealed with black wax.

Inside were ten thousand dollars in banknotes and a card featuring an address in Brookline, Massachusetts, where old wealth concealed itself behind gates and hedges taller than houses.

On the reverse of the card, penned in sharp black ink, were four words.

Come tonight. Eight o’clock.

Grace stared at the currency until the fluorescent bulb above her flickered.

Ten thousand dollars.

That covered three months of rent. That was the closing payment on her mother’s burial. That was enough to halt the collection agencies long enough for her to catch her breath.

It was also a lure.

She understood that.

Nevertheless, at 7:52 p.m., she stepped out of a car in front of iron gates monitored by lenses, stone lions, and men who feigned being unarmed.

Dominic Hale’s property did not resemble a residence.

It resembled a verdict.

The front entrance swung open before she could knock.

The scarred security guard from the bistro stood there.

“Miss Bennett.”

“Is this the part where I get searched?”

His lip twitched. “Already done.”

Grace scowled.

He moved aside.

The interior of the mansion was chillier than the drizzle outside. Marble floors. Dark timber. Oil canvases. Chandeliers shimmering like ice. It was gorgeous in the way galleries were gorgeous—costly, quiet, and impossible to find comfort in.

No toys in the corridor.

No family snapshots on the side tables.

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