Chapter 1 - The One Question
Saoirse dropped the house keys onto the marble table and whispered, “Ask me one question.”
Nikolai Drevik stepped into the foyer and saw the brass vault key still in her hand.
A tiny number had been carved beneath its ornamental head.
His face changed.
The key was not what he thought it was.
Saoirse saw the change and hated herself for noticing.
For eight years, she had been able to read Nikolai Drevik before anyone else could. A tightening at the corner of his mouth meant irritation. A slow blink meant he had already made a decision. Stillness meant danger.
Tonight, however, she had wanted to see something simpler.
Concern.
She was thirty-one weeks pregnant with his child.
She had lost two babies before this one.
Yesterday, she had told him about the tightening across her abdomen that had frightened her enough to call her obstetrician.
And less than an hour ago, her husband had walked through their front door with another pregnant woman.
Tess Marlowe stood farther inside the foyer now, one hand resting against the slight curve beneath her black dress.
Fourteen weeks.
Saoirse knew exactly how far along she was.
That was the humiliation of knowing everything.
Nikolai's apartment payments.
The ultrasound appointment.
The diamond bracelet.
The prenatal specialist.
The restaurant where he had met Tess on Thursdays.
Nine weeks of evidence had passed through Saoirse's hands because Nikolai had made one catastrophic mistake years earlier.
He had married the woman who audited his legitimate businesses.
“317,” Nikolai said.
Saoirse closed her fingers around the key.
“What?”
“The number.”
His attention stayed on her hand.
Not her face.
Not her belly.
Her hand.
Saoirse felt something inside her become strangely quiet.
She had imagined this moment hundreds of times since discovering Tess.
In some versions Nikolai begged.
In others he lied.
Once or twice, during particularly sleepless nights, Saoirse imagined throwing a crystal vase at his head.
She had done none of those things.
Instead, she had packed one bag.
Transferred nothing that did not legally belong to her.
Signed her resignation as independent compliance trustee.
Placed her house, vehicle and storage keys on the table.
Then she had offered the man she loved one question.
One chance.
Ask if the baby was healthy.
Ask where she would sleep.
Ask whether she was afraid.
Ask whether the contractions had stopped.
Anything.
Nikolai's gaze dropped toward the hidden outline beneath her coat.
“Have you already contacted the bank?”
Saoirse stared at him.
Tess shifted uncomfortably behind him.
There it was.
The answer.
“Yes,” Saoirse whispered. “That was your one question.”
She turned.
“Saoirse.”
Her hand stopped on the open door.
For one stupid second, hope came back.
She looked over her shoulder.
Nikolai's expression had hardened.
“Give me the key.”
Hope died again.
“No.”
“You don't understand what you're carrying.”
“I understand exactly what I'm carrying.”
Her palm moved over her belly.
Something flickered across his face.
Too late.
Saoirse walked outside.
Snow crunched beneath her shoes.
Her driver had already been dismissed for the evening. That had been intentional. She did not want one of Nikolai's employees knowing where she was going.
A cab waited beyond the gates.
“Saoirse.”
Nikolai had followed her onto the front step.
She did not turn.
“Do not open that vault.”
She almost laughed.
After eight years, those were his final words to his pregnant wife.
Not come back.
Not please.
Not I'm sorry.
Do not open that vault.
She climbed into the cab.
Only when the mansion disappeared behind the snow-covered trees did she allow herself to cry.
Not loudly.
Saoirse had never been a loud crier.
She simply pressed her fingertips beneath her eyes and watched Vancouver blur beyond the window.
Her baby moved.
A small rolling pressure beneath her ribs.
“I'm okay,” she whispered.
She wasn't sure whether she was reassuring the baby or herself.
Cesily Hart's office occupied the seventh floor of an old brick building overlooking the harbor.
By the time Saoirse arrived, rain had replaced snow downtown.
Cesily opened the door before she knocked.
Her attorney had changed out of courtroom heels and into slippers, but everything else about her remained severe.
“You came alone?”
“Yes.”
“That was reckless.”
“So was marrying Nikolai.”
Cesily didn't smile.
That frightened Saoirse more than any lecture could have.
She stepped inside.
Documents covered the conference table.
Saoirse recognized several.
Her resignation.
Copies of corporate ownership structures.
Wire transfers.
Port manifests.
And the sealed instructions concerning Box 317.
“You filed everything?”
“At eleven forty-two.”
“Good.”
“At midnight, you're no longer trustee.”
Saoirse sat carefully.
Her back hurt.
“That's the idea.”
Cesily remained standing.
“Nikolai's people have already called.”
“I expected that.”
“That isn't what worries me.”
Saoirse looked up.
Cesily folded her arms.
“Someone else is looking for you.”
“Who?”
“Pavel Oric.”
The name tightened the room around them.
Pavel controlled a competing network along the coast. Officially, he owned shipping warehouses and logistics companies.
Unofficially, people disappeared after disappointing him.
“Why?”
“He put money out for information about your location.”
Saoirse's hand immediately moved to her coat.
“The key?”
Cesily's eyes dropped to the movement.
“I thought so too.”
“You don't anymore?”
Cesily opened her mouth.
Headlights swept across the windows.
Both women froze.
A black sedan stopped below.
Then another.
Cesily walked to the window.
“Oh, hell.”
“What?”
The rear door of the first vehicle opened.
A man stepped into the rain.
Saoirse had seen photographs.
Everyone around Nikolai's businesses had.
Lucian Vale.
The only man Nikolai had spent seven years carefully avoiding.
Not because Lucian had more soldiers.
Because Lucian was patient.
Men like Pavel started wars.
Men like Lucian finished them.
He crossed the street without an umbrella.
Dark coat.
Black gloves.
A pale scar cutting through one eyebrow.
Two men remained outside.
Cesily looked at Saoirse.
“I called him.”
Saoirse stood so quickly that pain tightened across her lower abdomen.
“You did what?”
“I needed someone Pavel wouldn't challenge.”
“You called another criminal?”
“I called the only person who could get you out of this building without a gunfight.”
“No.”
Footsteps approached outside the office.
“Saoirse—”
“No. I just walked away from one man who believed protection gave him ownership over me. I'm not trading him for another.”
The door opened.
Lucian entered alone.
His gaze found Saoirse immediately.
Not the key.
Not the documents.
Her.
Then his eyes dropped briefly to the hand she had pressed against her abdomen.
“You're having contractions?”
Saoirse blinked.
The question hit harder than it should have.
“They're Braxton Hicks.”
“How far apart?”
“Why do you care?”
“Because you're pale.”
Cesily silently moved toward her phone.
Saoirse straightened.
“I don't need another crime boss deciding what happens to me.”
Lucian studied her.
Something unexpectedly quiet entered his expression.
“Then don't give me that power.”
Saoirse said nothing.
“I'll offer options,” he continued. “You choose.”
“Why?”
“Because Pavel isn't looking for the key.”
Cesily turned.
Saoirse felt cold.
“What is he looking for?”
Lucian removed his gloves.
Then he reached slowly into his coat so she could see every movement.
He withdrew an old photograph.
He placed it on the table.
Three people stood beside a cargo ship.
A younger Lucian.
A man Saoirse didn't recognize.
And a woman.
Saoirse leaned closer.
Her heart stumbled.
She knew that woman.
She had seen her in an old Drevik family album.
“Nikolai's mother,” she whispered.
“No.”
Lucian's answer came quietly.
Saoirse looked up.
“Then who is she?”
Lucian turned the photograph over.
Writing covered the back.
One sentence.
One date.
And beside it, the same number engraved on Saoirse's key.
Lucian pointed at the woman's face.
“Her name was Maeve Brennan.”
Saoirse stopped breathing.
Brennan.
Her name.
Her mother's maiden name.
“My mother died when I was three.”
Lucian's eyes held hers.
“No, Saoirse.”
A phone began ringing inside Cesily's locked desk.
Cesily went pale.
“That phone isn't mine.”
The ringing continued.
Saoirse stared at the drawer.
Cesily unlocked it.
Inside lay a phone none of them had placed there.
One message illuminated the screen.
DO NOT LET LUCIAN TELL HER WHO MAEVE REALLY WAS.
May you like
Then a second message appeared.
The sender's name was Nikolai.
