Chapter 1 - The Red Dot
Vivian wrapped both arms around Edmund’s neck and whispered, “Keep dancing. Someone is aiming at you.”
Edmund Costa looked past her shoulder and noticed a ruby from her wedding bracelet lying on the marble floor.
A thin red reflection crossed its polished surface.
It came from the eastern windows.
This was not a warning shot.
Ten hours earlier, Vivian Moretti had become his wife.
She had not kissed him because she loved him.
She had not walked through Saint Aurelia’s because she believed in forever.
And the five hundred people filling the Grand Bellhaven ballroom were not celebrating a romance.
They were celebrating a transaction.
Victor Moretti had spent years destroying everything his grandfather built. First came the private card games. Then horses. Then casinos in places where nobody asked how a respectable shipping executive could lose six figures before breakfast.
By the time Vivian learned how bad it was, the Moretti warehouses were mortgaged, the company accounts were nearly empty, and men she had never met were calling her father after midnight.
Then Edmund Costa made an offer.
He would settle the debts.
He would protect what remained of Moretti Shipping.
And he would marry Vivian.
Her father had called it salvation.
Vivian had called it exactly what it was.
A sale.
Now she was dancing with the buyer.
“You look like you’re considering homicide,” Edmund murmured.
His hand rested firmly at her waist.
Vivian gave him the smile expected of a bride surrounded by cameras.
“You’re currently first.”
Something almost resembling amusement touched his eyes.
It disappeared when she missed a step.
The red point had returned.
Shoulder.
Collar.
Throat.
Jaw.
Forehead.
Vivian moved without thinking.
She pressed herself against him.
“What are you doing?” Edmund asked.
“Dance as my husband.”
“Vivian.”
“There’s a red dot on your forehead.”
For one second she felt every muscle in him harden.
His expression did not change.
That frightened her more than panic would have.
“Where?”
“East windows. High angle.”
His tattooed hand moved slowly up her back until his fingers rested against her neck.
Anyone watching would think the feared Edmund Costa was pulling his bride closer.
“Do not look again.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Pillar. Three steps.”
She understood.
They kept moving.
“One,” Edmund whispered.
Their bodies turned.
“Two.”
The laser struck the marble.
It searched.
Then it climbed Edmund’s sleeve.
Vivian’s fingers tightened.
“He has you.”
Edmund moved.
The ballroom exploded.
Not from the gunshot.
From the chandelier.
A bullet struck the chain above them.
Crystal burst downward as Edmund threw Vivian behind the stone pillar.
Guests screamed.
Music stopped.
Security drew weapons.
People ran in every direction, turning an elegant ballroom into a stampede of silk, diamonds, and black tuxedos.
Edmund covered Vivian with his body.
“Stay down.”
A second shot cracked through glass.
Stone chipped inches from his shoulder.
“Edmund!”
“I said stay down.”
His voice had changed.
The dry humor was gone.
This was the man Bellhaven feared.
Three Costa guards rushed toward them.
“East building!” Edmund barked. “Upper floors. Seal every exit here first.”
One guard hesitated.
“Boss, shouldn’t we evacuate you?”
“No.”
Edmund looked over the crowd.
“Whoever arranged this may already be inside.”
Vivian stared at him.
The thought landed harder than the gunfire.
One of their guests might have invited the sniper.
Edmund caught her wrist.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Look at me.”
“I said no.”
“Vivian.”
She finally met his eyes.
There was no tenderness there.
But there was something she had not expected.
Fear.
Not for himself.
For her.
His thumb moved across a shallow cut on her cheek.
“Glass.”
“I’m fine.”
“You put yourself between me and a rifle.”
“I was trying to get you behind the pillar.”
“You covered my body with yours.”
“I panicked intelligently.”
His mouth almost moved.
Another crash sounded near the eastern side of the ballroom.
Edmund immediately pushed her behind him.
That was when Vivian noticed something.
Her father was gone.
“Where’s Victor?”
Edmund turned.
The Moretti family table was empty.
Her father’s champagne remained untouched.
His chair had been pushed backward.
“Your father was there thirty seconds ago,” Edmund said.
Vivian’s stomach tightened.
A Costa guard approached.
“Sir.”
“What?”
“We locked the ballroom.”
“And?”
“The sniper position was in the Bellhaven Tower across the street. Team is moving now.”
Edmund waited.
The guard looked uncomfortable.
“There’s something else.”
“Say it.”
“Security camera covering the east service exit was disabled six minutes before the first shot.”
Edmund’s eyes narrowed.
“Who has access?”
“Costa security. Hotel management.”
The guard glanced toward Vivian.
“And the Moretti family.”
Vivian felt Edmund’s attention shift to her.
“My father did not try to kill you.”
“I didn’t say he did.”
“You thought it.”
“I think about evidence.”
“You think everyone is guilty.”
“That keeps me alive.”
Vivian looked toward the abandoned chair again.
A terrible possibility entered her mind.
“What if the shot wasn’t meant to kill you?”
Edmund studied her.
“What?”
“The first shot hit the chandelier.”
“It missed.”
“Did it?”
Edmund said nothing.
Vivian pointed toward the ceiling.
“The shooter had a stable position. He put the dot on your forehead. He had time. Then he hit a chain several feet above us?”
Edmund looked up.
His expression changed.
“You think he wanted chaos.”
“I think someone wanted five hundred people running toward every exit at once.”
“For what?”
Vivian looked toward her father’s empty seat.
“To make someone disappear.”
Edmund gave orders immediately.
“Find Victor Moretti.”
The guards scattered.
Vivian started forward.
Edmund stopped her.
“You’re staying with me.”
“He’s my father.”
“And somebody just fired into our wedding.”
“You don’t get to order me around.”
“Tonight I do.”
Her eyes flashed.
“Because you bought the privilege?”
His face became still.
The words had struck somewhere deeper than she expected.
“I paid his debts,” Edmund said quietly. “I did not buy you.”
“You put marriage in the contract.”
“Yes.”
“That sounds remarkably similar.”
Before he could answer, one of his men shouted from the service corridor.
“Boss!”
Edmund and Vivian turned.
A young guard hurried toward them carrying something in a white handkerchief.
A phone.
Victor Moretti’s phone.
“Found it outside the east service door.”
Vivian took a step forward.
“Where is he?”
“No sign of him.”
Edmund examined the phone.
The screen was cracked.
There was blood along one edge.
Vivian stopped breathing.
“Is that his?”
“We don’t know.”
The phone vibrated.
Everyone looked down.
A message appeared.
UNKNOWN NUMBER.
Edmund read it first.
Then his jaw tightened.
“What does it say?” Vivian demanded.
He tried to turn the screen away.
She grabbed his wrist.
“Edmund.”
Slowly, he let her see.
The message contained only seven words.
THE BRIDE WAS NEVER PART OF THE DEAL.
Vivian stared at it.
“What deal?”
Edmund said nothing.
“Edmund.”
His silence answered too much.
“You know.”
“I know there are possibilities.”
“You know.”
“Vivian—”
The phone vibrated again.
A photograph arrived.
It showed Victor Moretti sitting in the back of a dark vehicle.
Alive.
Terrified.
Beside him sat a man whose face had been cropped out.
Victor was holding a sheet of paper.
On it, someone had written:
ASK YOUR HUSBAND WHAT HE BOUGHT SIX YEARS AGO.
Vivian slowly raised her eyes to Edmund.
For the first time that night, the most feared man in Bellhaven looked as though he wished he could lie.
Then a voice behind them said:
“Mr. Costa, we found the sniper’s rifle.”
Edmund turned.
The guard swallowed.
“There was a name engraved on it.”
He held out the weapon.
Vivian stepped closer.
May you like
One name had been carved into the metal.
Her own.
