MAFIA BOSS STORMED A CATHEDRAL WHERE A TERRIFIED BRIDE WAS BEING FORCED TO MARRY THE MAN WHO HAD NEARLY KILLED HER—THEN HE ANNOUNCED SOMETHING THAT SILENCED ALL 300 GUESTS!

Paige pulled at the zipper until her fingers went numb. Nothing moved. The dress held her upright like a cruel pair of hands, its corset squeezing the ribs Colin had once broken. She stared at the woman in the mirror and realized she was afraid to ask for help. For two years, every request had been turned into evidence that she was weak. Every small need had become something Colin could withhold.

A soft knock came from the door. "Miss? I'm Helen. Mr. Rossy asked me to check on you."

Paige wanted to say she was fine. Instead she heard herself say, "I can't get this thing off."

The woman who entered was in her sixties, with silver hair pinned loosely at the nape of her neck and a face that looked as though it had survived several lifetimes. She wore jeans and a cardigan, not a uniform. Her gaze went from Paige's white knuckles to the wedding gown, and her expression changed.

"Who fastened you into that?"

"A woman who kept apologizing." Paige attempted a smile. "Apparently guilt doesn't loosen buttons."

Helen walked to a drawer, found dressmaker's shears, and held them up where Paige could see. "The dress is expensive. You aren't replaceable. May I cut it?"

The question was so simple that Paige nearly cried. May I. Not hold still. Not don't make a scene. She nodded.

Helen worked carefully, slipping a folded towel between the steel blades and Paige's skin. Each snip sounded louder than the last. When the reinforced seam split, air rushed into Paige's lungs. She bent forward, gasping, and Helen guided her to the edge of the bed without touching her again until she asked permission.

"There," Helen said. "Nobody gets to sew you back into it."

Paige laughed, a strange broken sound. Then a thin silver object dropped from the lining and struck the floor.

Both women froze.

It wasn't a bead or a piece of boning. It was a narrow metal capsule, no longer than Paige's little finger, taped into the inner hem. Helen picked it up with a tissue. One end unscrewed. Inside was a memory card and a tiny square of paper covered in cramped handwriting.

IF THEY TAKE THE DRESS, THEY TAKE THE PROOF. ASK FOR JUNE BELL. DON'T TRUST THE BLUE ROOM.

Paige read the note three times. The handwriting meant nothing to her. The words blue room meant everything.

Richard Whitmore kept an office at the family headquarters that employees called the blue room because of its dark navy walls. Paige had been inside only twice. Both times Colin had appeared within minutes, smiling too brightly, asking why she was wandering. On her second visit, she'd seen a young woman standing beside Richard's desk, trembling as she signed a document. Richard had covered the paper with his palm when he noticed Paige.

"I need to know where this came from," Paige whispered.

Helen inspected the torn fabric. "Someone put it there after the dress was finished. See? Different thread. Hand stitching."

Paige remembered the final fitting the previous afternoon. The seamstress, a petite woman with anxious brown eyes, had asked Colin to step outside so she could make an adjustment. He'd refused. Later, when he took a phone call, the woman had bent beneath Paige's skirts and murmured, "Keep your feet under you, sweetheart."

At the time Paige assumed it was ordinary kindness. Now she could still feel the seamstress's shaking hands.

Helen didn't tell her to hand the card to Gabriel. She placed the tissue on the bedside table and asked whether Paige wanted a shower, food, or a doctor. Paige considered each option. The fact that she was being offered a choice made the room feel unfamiliar.

"Food," she said. "And a phone that isn't being monitored."

Helen's eyebrows rose. "Those are two very different requests."

"I know."

"I'll see about both."

While Helen fetched a clean sweatshirt and loose cotton pants, Paige examined the other side of the note. There was an embossed letter B inside a circle, like the mark on expensive hotel stationery. Beneath it, almost too faint to read, someone had written 11:47.

A time. A room number. Or a date stripped of its context. She hated how easily her mind returned to deciphering threats. Colin had trained her to read the slightest change in atmosphere. Perhaps now she could turn that skill against him.

After a hot shower she stood under a blanket beside the window, staring at the wooded valley. There were cameras beneath the eaves, guards on the terraces, and steel gates across the drive. In another life, she might have mistaken this place for a prison. In this life, it might still become one.

Gabriel arrived as she was eating grilled cheese and tomato soup at a small table. He stopped at the threshold when she looked up.

"Helen said you found something."

"Helen said she would tell you I'd ask to see you." Paige set down her spoon. "That's different."

He acknowledged the correction with a short nod. "Then I'm here because you asked."

She watched for irritation. There was none she could see. That didn't make him safe. It made him disciplined.

Paige slid the folded paper across the table, keeping the capsule beside her plate. Gabriel read the note. His face sharpened at the name.

"You know June Bell," Paige said.

"I know she disappeared nine months ago. She handled compliance audits for Whitmore Holdings. After she reported irregularities to an internal committee, her apartment was emptied and her bank accounts went dormant. Richard claimed she'd resigned."

"And you believed him?"

"No."

"Why didn't you tell the police?"

Gabriel gave her a look that wasn't quite mocking. "I did. An unsigned tip. Three days later, the detective handling it was transferred."

Paige looked again at the warning about the blue room. "My seamstress hid this. I don't even know her name."

"We'll find out."

"We?" Paige repeated.

"Only if you want my help."

She leaned back. "Here's what I want. My own attorney. A way to contact someone outside this house. No cameras in my bedroom. And you don't get that card until I know what happens to the original."

Gabriel glanced at the capsule, then back at her. "Agreed on the attorney and the cameras. Helen can provide a phone. As for the card, we can make an image of it with you present. You keep the original."

"You agreed awfully fast."

"Would bargaining make the answer more convincing?"

"Sometimes people say yes until they get what they want."

Something dark passed through his expression. "I've met people like that."

There was a pause that made room for the clock above the kitchenette. Paige noticed a faded scar along his right wrist, a jagged pale line disappearing beneath his cuff. She had no interest in romanticizing a man who commanded armed guards, no matter how politely he spoke.

"Why do you care about Richard Whitmore?" she asked. "And don't tell me it's because he hurt me. You'd never heard of me a month ago."

Gabriel answered only after several seconds. "My sister tried to expose one of his foundations. She died before she could finish."

Paige's spoon rested against the bowl. "How?"

"A car accident. According to the report."

"And according to you?"

"I don't know. That's the part I can't forgive myself for."

His honesty was more unsettling than a threat. He was letting her see the edge of a grief that hadn't softened, only hardened into purpose.

"What was her name?" Paige asked.

"Sofia."

Paige looked down at the card again. She wasn't the only person who had suffered around the Whitmores. She had simply believed her pain existed in a locked room no one else could see.

A muted chime sounded from Gabriel's watch. He glanced at it, then turned toward the hallway. A tall man in a dark jacket appeared, his blond hair cropped close to his skull.

"Dante," Gabriel said. "What is it?"

"Someone called the estate switchboard asking for Paige. Woman's voice. Said she worked at the bridal shop."

Paige rose so abruptly her chair scraped the floor. "The seamstress?"

"She wouldn't give a name," Dante replied. "She sounded scared."

"Did you connect her?"

"No. I asked for a callback number. She said she couldn't stay on the line." Dante swallowed. "Then she said something else."

Gabriel waited.

"She said the dress wasn't supposed to reach this house."

Paige's scalp prickled. "What does that mean?"

Dante held up his phone. On its screen was a still image from the estate's front security camera. A woman stood beside the outer gate, face angled away, one hand pressing a bloody towel against her side. She wore a bridal shop's black apron over a pale blouse.

"The call came from outside," Dante said. "She walked up while we were tracing it."

"Open the gate," Paige demanded.

"We don't know who's behind her," Dante said. "Could be a setup."

Paige saw the woman sag against the stone pillar. Every second spent debating might be another second too long. Then she noticed something tucked under the woman's arm: a thick manila envelope with the Whitmore crest.

"That's her," Paige said. "That's the woman who fitted the dress."

A guard moved toward the monitor. On the screen, a dark SUV eased around the bend in the access road, headlights off.

Gabriel's voice changed. "Get her inside. Now."

The image fractured as a burst of white light washed across the camera. The speakers delivered a sharp pop. The woman dropped out of view.