Killian raised two fingers. The bodyguards lowered their guns, though their muscles remained coiled.

He didn't speak immediately. He took a step toward her. The rain hammered against his suit, but he seemed impervious to it. His gaze lingered on the way the wet silk of her dress clung to her waist, to the curve of her hip.

It wasn't a look of lust. It was an assessment. He was checking for weapons.

On the ground, the bleeding man seized the opportunity. He lunged forward, grasping at Killian's polished shoe. "Mr. Gibson, please! It was a mistake!"

Delia let out a sharp, high-pitched scream. She threw her hands up to cover her eyes, pressing her palms against her face.

Through the gap between her ring and middle finger, she watched.

Killian looked down at the man clutching his shoe with an expression of mild distaste. He didn't kick him. He just looked at the blood staining his leather oxford.

"Deal with it," Killian said.

The bodyguards hauled the man up. They dragged him into the darkness of the hedges. The man's screams were cut short by a dull thud.

Delia kept her hands over her face, letting out ragged, theatrical breaths.

"Delia!"

The voice came from the corridor entrance. Ansel burst into the rain, holding an umbrella over his head. He stopped dead when he saw her standing in front of his brother.

"You followed me?" Ansel shrieked. "You crazy bitch! You followed me here?"

He stayed five meters away, his free hand flying up to cover his nose again.

Delia lowered her hands. The tears she had prepared didn't come. She was too annoyed. She wiped the rain from her cheeks and looked at Ansel.

"Follow you?" she asked. "Ansel, the world doesn't revolve around your paranoia."

"You're trying to appeal to Killian!" Ansel pointed a shaking finger at her. "It won't work! I won't marry you! Even if you beg him!"

Delia turned to look at Killian. He had returned to his chair, watching this domestic dispute with a sudden, terrifying interest.

"This is your brother?" she asked Killian. Her voice was polite, detached. "Maybe you should have him checked for a brain tumor. The delusions are getting severe."

The corner of Killian's mouth twitched. It was a microscopic movement, but Delia saw it.

"You..." Ansel sputtered. "What did you say?"

Delia took a step toward Ansel.

He scrambled backward, slipping on the wet stone. He gagged, a dry, heaving sound echoing in the garden.

"Get back!" he choked out.

Delia stopped. She tilted her head, putting on her best medical student face.

"Ansel," she said loudly, ensuring the bodyguards in the shadows could hear. "Is this a condition? You vomit every time you get close to a woman?"

"In the medical journals," she said, her voice dripping with faux sympathy, "psychological erectile dysfunction often manifests with nausea. Is that it? Is that why you're so afraid to touch me?"

Ansel's face turned a violent shade of purple. "I do not have... I can... Shut up!"

"It's okay," she said soothingly. "There are pills for that. Though, honestly, I don't think it's worth the prescription cost."

She turned back to Killian. She offered him a slight, respectful nod.

"I apologize for the intrusion, Mr. Gibson. Since the engagement is clearly off, I won't waste any more of your time."

She didn't wait for permission. She turned and walked between them. She passed Ansel without looking at him.

She felt Killian's eyes on her back until she rounded the corner.

"She's lying," Ansel hissed to his brother. "She's a lunatic."

Delia paused just out of sight, pressing her back against the cold stone wall to listen.

"Did you say she followed you?" Killian's voice was low.

"Yes! She must have!"

"Her shoes," Killian said. "There was no mud on the soles. She didn't come from the main entrance. She came from the side gate."

Silence.

"I don't understand," Ansel said.

"She's lying," Killian murmured. "But not about you."

She heard the flick of the lighter again.

"Find out everything about her," Killian said. "The little wild cat has claws."

Delia burst out of the club's heavy double doors and sucked in a lungful of humid air. The rain had slowed to a drizzle.

She dropped the shoulders. She let the 'confused girl' mask slide off her face. Her eyes went cold.

Her phone vibrated in her clutch. The screen flashed: Sterling.

She answered.

"Delia?" Her brother's voice was tight.

She pinched the bridge of her nose, then pitched her voice up an octave. "Sterling..." She let a wobble enter the word. "Ansel... he was so mean."

"What did that bastard do?" Sterling roared. As the second brother and the family's resident artist, Sterling's temperament was as volatile as his abstract paintings. He lacked Preston's cold logic or Foster's quiet menace, reacting instead with raw, protective emotion. "Where are you? I'm coming to get you."

"No," she sniffled. "I'm taking a cab. He... he said I made him sick. He called off the wedding."

"I'm going to kill him," Sterling growled.

"Just... let me come home," she whispered and hung up.

She stared at the phone. No tears. Just calculation.

She hailed a taxi. As she slid into the backseat, she pulled a slim black device from the lining of her purse. She connected it to her phone.

Her fingers flew across the screen.

Target: The Zenith Club Security Mainframe.

Status: Bypassing Firewall... Success.

She accessed the camera logs. She found the file labeled Garden_Cam_04. She watched herself slipping behind the statue. She watched the execution.

She hit Delete.

Data Scrubbing... 100%.

She leaned back against the worn seat of the taxi, exhaling. She knew this left a digital footprint-a void where data should be-but leaving the footage of her witnessing a murder was a death sentence. A glitch was safer than a confession.

High above the city, in the penthouse office of The Zenith Club, Killian Gibson sat on a leather sofa.

Ansel was pacing the room, still ranting about Delia's audacity. Killian wasn't listening. He was holding a tablet.

"Boss," his assistant, Dirk, said, stepping forward. "We have a problem with the security logs."

Killian didn't look up. "Let me guess. The footage from the garden is gone."

Dirk blinked. "Yes. Someone hacked the system. It was a remote wipe. Very clean. We can't trace the IP."

Ansel stopped pacing. "What? Someone hacked us?"

Killian smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. It was the smile of a man who had found a puzzle piece he didn't know was missing.

"She tried to erase it," Killian said. "She thinks she's safe."

"Who?" Ansel asked.

"Delia Fitzgerald." Killian tapped the screen. "She's not just a spoiled brat, Ansel. She's a professional."

"A professional what? Shopper?" Ansel scoffed.

Killian stood up, walking to the floor-to-ceiling window. He looked down at the street, watching the yellow taxi disappear into the traffic.

He took a drag from his cigarette.

Killian narrowed his eyes. "A cat that knows how to sheathe its claws is far more intriguing than a lion."

The iron gates of the Fitzgerald estate groaned as they swung open. The house loomed in the darkness, windows blazing with light.

Delia walked into the foyer. The air was thick enough to choke on. The maids were gone. The silence was heavy.

Her father, Hubert Fitzgerald, sat in the center of the living room. He looked like a man waiting for a firing squad. His face was gray.

Sterling was pacing by the fireplace, running his paint-stained hands through his hair.

"You have the nerve to come back?" Hubert shouted the moment he saw her. He stood up, his hands shaking. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"

Delia tossed her purse onto the sofa. "Dad, Ansel broke it off. He said I make him vomit. Literally."

"I don't care about his stomach!" Hubert slammed his hand on the table. "You insulted the Gibson family! You walked away from the contract!"

"Contract?" she asked. "It's a marriage, Dad. Not a business merger. And I'm not marrying a man who can't perform."

Sterling snorted. Hubert shot him a glare that could peel paint.

"You don't understand," Hubert whispered. He collapsed back into the chair. "It's not just business. It's... it's a debt. An old debt."

"What kind of debt?" Delia pressed.

Hubert looked at the floor. "A blood debt. The parchment... the marriage contract... it wasn't signed with ink."

Her heart stuttered. Parchment. Blood debt. This wasn't corporate jargon; this was Old World underworld law. Her father was terrified, not of bankruptcy, but of execution.

"Where is it?" she asked.

"You don't ask questions!" Hubert snapped, fear spiking in his voice. "Tomorrow, you are going to the Gibson estate. You will apologize to Ansel. You will beg him to take you back."

"No," she said.

Hubert stood up, raising his hand.

Sterling stepped between them, catching Father's wrist. His artist's hands were surprisingly strong. "Dad! Don't. You're not hitting her because that freak Ansel has a weak stomach."

Hubert's hand hovered in the air. He looked at it, then dropped it to his side. He looked old. Defeated.

"If you don't marry him," Hubert said, his voice cracking, "they will destroy us. Not financially, Delia. They will wipe us out."

He turned and walked out of the room.

Delia stood there, her blood running cold. Her father was a powerful man. He didn't scare easily. But the mention of that contract had terrified him.

She went to her room and locked the door.

She sat at her vanity, staring at herself in the mirror.

Parchment. Blood debt.

She opened her laptop. She pulled up a secure browser. She typed: Gibson Family History + Origins.

Results: Philanthropy. Real Estate. Shipping.

She typed: Gibson + Pama.

Access Denied.

The screen went black for a second, then reset. Her own firewall had kicked in to stop a trace.

She sat back.

They were scrubbing the internet.

She remembered the look in Killian's eyes in the garden. The absolute authority. The violence.

If she wanted to know what her father was hiding, she couldn't rely on Google. She needed access. She needed to get inside the beast's belly.

She opened the top drawer of her desk. Buried under a pile of lipstick and old receipts was a business card. She had swiped it from a charity gala months ago.

Killian Gibson. CEO, Gibson Corp.

It was a generic card. But it was a way in.

She picked it up. The card stock was heavy. Expensive.

"You want an apology?" she whispered to the empty room. "Fine. I'll give you one."

But not to Ansel. Ansel was the puppet.

She was going for the puppet master.