The car pulled away from the auction house, the city's lights streaking past the windows in silence, Vivien watching Edward's composed profile with quiet curiosity."Why did you refuse Victor's offer," she said finally. "A temporary partnership seems logical, given the size of what we are apparently facing.""Victor is too ambitious," Edward replied. "An alliance with him now would only produce a more dangerous enemy later, once whatever we are hunting has been dealt with and he decides my usefulness has expired."Vivien absorbed that, understanding the calculation completely.Her phone rang before she could respond further.She answered, and within seconds her expression shifted from casual attention to sharp concern."Someone broke into the ancestral estate," she said, lowering the phone. "Nothing was stolen. But they left something behind. A wooden box, addressed specifically to you."Edward's expression sharpened immediately. "Take me there."The Holden ancestral manor sat behind

Edward did not move toward the door.He stood in the study for a long moment, forcing the cold urgency in his chest to settle into something he could actually use, and then he pulled out his phone and dialed Eva's number.She answered on the second ring."Edward?" Her voice carried easy, unbothered warmth, the background noise of a busy shopping district audible behind her. "This is unexpected. I am out with a few friends, just picking up some things. Why the sudden call?"He listened to the ordinary rhythm of her voice, the complete absence of anything strained or coerced in it, and something in his chest loosened by a fraction."Stay where you are," he said. "Do not go anywhere alone. And if anyone comes looking for you, someone you do not know, do not trust them regardless of what they claim."There was a brief pause on the line. "Edward, you are worrying me. What is going on?""Just do as I ask," he said. "I will explain later."He ended the call before she could press further, an

The last door on the left was slightly open. A thin line of pale light fell through the gap and cut across the dusty floor like a blade.Edward pushed it open with the back of his hand.The room inside was spotless.No dust. No cobwebs. No sheets over the furniture. The floor had been swept recently, the desk polished, the curtains pulled back to let in the mountain light. It smelled like old paper and wood oil, the kind of care someone gives to a space they consider sacred.A chessboard sat on the desk.Edward walked closer. The pieces were arranged in the middle of a game, black and white locked in a position that looked deliberate rather than abandoned. He counted them twice.One piece was missing. The black king.His chest tightened. A memory surfaced before he could stop it. The Old Master's study in the compound where Edward had spent four years of his youth, the same chessboard, the same habit of leaving games unfinished as lessons."The king does not run," the Old Master had t

He pulled the edge of the rug back with two fingers and found what he expected to find. A section of floorboard that had been removed and replaced with careful precision. The seams were nearly invisible, but the wood was slightly newer than the boards around it.He pried it up with his fingernails.The device underneath was compact and well made. A pressure plate connected to a small brick of plastic explosive by three thin wires, red and blue and white. The pressure plate was armed. The weight of the desk sitting above it was the only thing keeping the circuit open. If Edward had tried to move the desk, if he had knocked it during his fall, if a bullet had struck the floor at the right angle, the entire study would have become a crater.His hands were steady.He had disarmed devices like this before. The Old Master had made him practice on fourteen different trigger mechanisms until his fingers could tell the difference between a live wire and a dead one by touch alone. That training

He set the phone down on the floor and turned back to the study.The room looked different in the darkness. Without the mountain light coming through the windows, the walls seemed closer, the shadows thicker. The chessboard on the desk was barely visible, the white pieces catching what little light crept through the broken glass.Edward ran his hands along the wall behind the desk. The Old Master had always built his safe houses the same way. One room that looked important. One hiding place that did not.His fingers found the seam.A section of the wall panel was slightly loose, fitted so precisely that it looked seamless unless you knew what you were touching. Edward pressed the lower left corner and the panel shifted inward with a soft click.Behind it, a narrow compartment cut into the wall's interior. Inside, a metal box, dented and scratched, the kind of thing designed to survive a fire.He pulled it out and opened it.Documents. A dozen pages, maybe more, most of them water dama