MAFIA BOSS’S PREGNANT TRANSLATOR NOTICED THREE MISSING SECONDS IN THE SECURITY FOOTAGE—AND EVERY MAN IN THE ROOM WENT QUIET WHEN SHE PROVED WHY...

Darkness changed everyone.

Men who had looked invincible beneath fluorescent light became breathing, moving shapes. Concrete amplified every shoe scrape. Somewhere near Mara, a body hit the floor hard enough to make the tools on the workshop wall tremble.

Cassian’s hand found the back of her neck.

“Down.”

He did not wait for agreement.

He pulled her behind the steel worktable as a second gunshot tore through the darkness.

Metal screamed above them.

Mara covered her stomach with both arms.

Cassian leaned over her without touching more than necessary, using his body to block the opening between table legs.

One of his guards fired toward the maintenance passage.

A muzzle flash lit the room for an instant.

In that fraction of light, Mara saw three things.

The fallen guard moving.

The hidden door standing open.

And a figure at the far wall wearing white gloves.

Then darkness returned.

“Left wall,” Mara whispered.

Cassian shifted.

“What?”

“Someone is against the left wall.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw the gloves.”

Another flash.

Cassian fired once.

A cry answered.

Footsteps pounded into the passage.

Cassian’s surviving guard went after them, but Cassian stopped him with one word.

“No.”

The footsteps disappeared.

Silence returned so abruptly that Mara could hear her own pulse.

Emergency lights came on thirty seconds later, dull red strips along the floor.

The wounded guard was conscious. Blood soaked the sleeve of his jacket, but the bullet had passed through his upper arm rather than his chest.

Cassian knelt beside him, checked the wound, and told the other guard to get medical help without using the elevator.

Mara stared at the maintenance passage.

“You let them go.”

Cassian looked at her.

“I let my man stay alive.”

The answer silenced her.

For all the stories she had heard about Cassian Vulov, she had expected vengeance to come first.

It had not.

He stood and examined the bullet strike in the worktable.

Then he looked toward the phone lying where Mara had dropped it.

The screen was shattered but still glowing.

Call ended.

Noah was gone again.

Mara crouched to pick it up.

Cassian reached first.

She glared.

“That phone is the only connection I have to him.”

“It is also the only connection the shooter had to this room.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know the lights died six seconds after you answered.”

Mara froze.

Six seconds.

Cassian handed the phone to his guard for isolation.

“You think Noah triggered the attack?”

“I think someone knew the exact second that call began.”

“He warned me to leave you.”

“That is not evidence of innocence.”

“It is not evidence of guilt either.”

“No.” Cassian looked toward the hidden passage. “That is what makes him useful.”

Mara hated that sentence because it sounded true.

The wounded guard was taken out through a service stair. Cassian refused to leave until the workshop had been photographed and sealed.

Mara watched him work.

No panic. No shouting. No theatrical threats.

He asked short questions and remembered every answer.

Who had access to sublevel two?

When had the emergency lights last been tested?

Which circuit controlled the workshop?

Why had the hidden maintenance passage not appeared on the 1998 renovation plan?

The final question made the remaining guard look uncomfortable.

Cassian saw it.

“Speak.”

“My father worked the renovation.”

“And?”

“He said Mr. Viktor wanted a private route from the archive to the loading tunnel.”

Mara looked at Cassian.

“Viktor?”

“My father.”

There was no affection in the answer.

The guard continued carefully. “He said Mr. Viktor used it when certain objects could not pass through customs openly.”

Cassian’s face became still.

“When did your father tell you this?”

“Years ago.”

“And you never reported it?”

“He told me the route had been sealed.”

Cassian looked at the open passage.

“It was not.”

The man lowered his eyes.

Mara moved toward the painting.

Cassian noticed.

“I told you not to touch anything.”

“I’m not touching.”

She bent closer to the exposed backing.

The hidden cavity had been cut precisely. Old linen had been separated from newer support fabric. The metal case that had rested inside was no larger than a thin hardcover book.

“What fits in that?” she asked.

“Documents.”

“Money?”

“Not enough to justify tonight.”

“A drive?”

“Possible.”

Mara studied the cut edges.

Then she frowned.

“What?” Cassian asked.

“The dust.”

He stepped beside her.

She pointed without touching.

“There’s dust around the edges where the backing was cut. But inside the cavity is clean.”

“So?”

“So the case wasn’t removed tonight.”

Cassian stared at the cavity.

Mara continued.

“If someone opened this twenty minutes ago, the fibers would still be loose and the exposed wood would be clean. But the edges collected dust. The cavity was opened earlier, then staged to look fresh.”

“How much earlier?”

“I don’t know. Days. Weeks.”

Cassian looked toward the steaming coffee cup.

Mara followed his eyes.

“The coffee was staged too.”

He picked up the cup with a gloved hand and sniffed it.

“No steam now.”

“Obviously.”

“No. Before.” He looked at her. “You saw steam.”

“Yes.”

“The room is fifty-nine degrees.”

“So?”

“Coffee left here would steam longer than usual.”

Mara understood.

They had been shown a scene.

An open painting.

An empty case.

Fresh coffee.

A ringing phone.

A message designed to pull Mara into the room and then convince Cassian someone had escaped moments earlier.

“The shooter wasn’t stealing anything,” she said.

Cassian nodded once.

“He was waiting.”

“For us.”

“For you.”

The word sat heavily between them.

Mara felt cold despite the coat.

Cassian examined the underside of the worktable where the first shot had struck.

Then he crouched.

“Come here.”

She did.

A small black object had been attached beneath the table with adhesive.

A microphone.

No bigger than a coin.

Cassian’s face hardened.

“They heard the entire conversation.”

Mara looked toward the hidden passage.

“Including Noah.”

“Including your name. Your questions. Everything.”

Mara’s throat tightened.

Then she noticed something else.

A second device, farther back.

Not a microphone.

A tiny camera.

Cassian removed both devices carefully and handed them to the guard.

“Find where they transmit.”

The guard left.

Mara stood alone with Cassian and the painting.

“You knew Noah,” she said.

“Not personally.”

“You knew his work.”

“Yes.”

“What was he moving?”

Cassian did not answer.

“Cassian.”

His eyes met hers.

It was the first time she had used his name without irritation or challenge.

Something subtle changed in his expression.

“What was he moving?” she repeated.

“Records.”

“What records?”

“Ownership transfers. Port manifests. Insurance substitutions.”

“For stolen art.”

“For art that had complicated histories.”

Mara gave him a flat look.

“That is a very expensive phrase for stolen.”

“Yes.”

The admission surprised her.

Cassian looked at The River at Sola.

“My father built a network around objects displaced by war. Some were legal. Some were recovered. Some were purchased from people who had no right to sell them. Some were used as collateral for deals that had nothing to do with art.”

“And Noah discovered it.”

“He discovered something inside it.”

“What?”

“I don’t know.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“No. I expect you to decide whether I am lying.”

Mara looked at him.

His posture was relaxed. His eyes were not.

He was angry.

But not frightened.

Not hiding embarrassment.

Not using the careful language people used when they wanted to make a lie sound official.

“I think you’re telling part of the truth,” she said.

Cassian almost smiled.

“That is more than most people give me.”

“Don’t enjoy it.”

“I wasn’t.”

The guard returned carrying a small receiver.

“We traced the camera signal.”

“Where?” Cassian asked.

The guard hesitated.

“Ballroom level.”

Cassian’s eyes narrowed.

“Which room?”

“East conference room.”

Mara remembered.

Mrs. Belov.

The collector Cassian had ordered brought there for questioning.

They moved fast.

This time Cassian did not argue about Mara following.

By the time the elevator opened on the ballroom level, the building had been mostly evacuated. Broken glass glittered across the marble floor. Abandoned champagne glasses stood beside auction paddles and designer handbags people had forgotten in panic.

The east conference room door was locked from inside.

Cassian’s guard forced it.

Mrs. Belov sat upright in a chair at the long table.

For one impossible second, Mara thought the elderly woman was simply waiting.

Then she saw the blood beneath her hand.

A small dark stain at her chest.

Her eyes were open.

On the table in front of her sat a laptop receiving the hidden camera feed from sublevel two.

Beside it was an antique pistol.

Cassian checked her pulse.

Nothing.

Mara stopped in the doorway.