I stood up from the desk. The mansion was dead silent.

I walked down the dark hallway toward Gabriel's private study. The door was unlocked. He never locked it, because he never believed I would dare step inside his space.

The study smelled of cedarwood, leather, and expensive scotch. Behind a row of antique law books on the far wall sat a heavy steel safe.

I didn't need to guess the combination.

Years ago, during our first year together, I used to sit on the couch while he worked late into the night. I loved watching his hands. I watched how his long fingers turned the dial. Four turns right to twenty-two. Two turns left to zero-nine. One turn right to sixty-four. I had memorized it simply because I loved him, and every little thing he did felt important.

He never once noticed me watching. To him, I was just background noise.

I knelt down. I turned the dial.

*Click.*

The heavy steel door swung open without a sound.

Inside were stacks of bearer bonds, land deeds, and velvet jewelry boxes. Pushed deep into the back corner was a thick manila folder.

A red stamp on the front read: *Vanguard Investigations.*

The date on the cover was four and a half years ago. Exactly eighteen months into our marriage.

I pulled the string and opened the file.

My breath stopped in my throat.

The first page showed a faded photo of my father’s small manufacturing plant in upstate New York. Beneath it were bank statements, wire transfers, and forged loan contracts.

Every single transaction traced back to the Garza family. Celeste’s father. Celeste’s older brother.

They had set up dummy corporations. They had drained my parents' accounts dry and left them with millions in fraudulent debt. My father had collapsed from a massive heart attack right on the cold concrete of his warehouse floor the day the marshals arrived. Two months later, my mother swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills in our empty kitchen.

I was nineteen. I had spent years believing it was bad luck. I had spent years crying into my pillow, wondering why the universe had destroyed my family.

I turned to the final page of the summary report.

In the top right margin, written in Gabriel’s sharp, familiar cursive, were six words:

*Do not pursue. Maintain current arrangement.*

He knew.

He had known for four and a half years.

He knew Celeste’s family had murdered my parents. And he had buried the evidence to keep the Garzas safe. He had watched me visit their graves in the rain. He had held me while I cried on their death anniversaries. He had looked me in the eye and whispered that they were in a better place.

All while protecting the monsters who put them in the ground.

My hands didn't shake. My heart didn't beat fast. A strange, dead calm took over my body.

I folded the file and slid it into my tote bag.

I closed the safe, spun the dial, and put the books back in place.

I walked back to my bedroom.

I didn't pack clothes. I didn't pack shoes. I didn't take a single piece of jewelry Gabriel had ever bought me. I didn't want anything that smelled like this family.

I only packed five things.

The private investigator's report.

Rosalina’s gray rabbit, Barnaby.

The faded photograph of my parents standing on our old porch.

My federal judge credentials and badge.

And my sealed medical records proving my bone marrow had saved Ophelia Montgomery’s life.

That was it. My whole life fit into one bag.

I put on a black wool coat and pulled my hair back into a low ponytail. I zipped my boots. I looked around the room one last time.

I didn't leave a note.

You only leave notes for people who care that you are gone.

I picked up my bag and walked out. I walked down the long carpeted corridor. I kept my hands to myself. I didn't touch the mahogany walls. I didn't touch the portraits. I didn't want to leave a single fingerprint in this house.

I reached the grand staircase and walked down toward the marble foyer.

The front doors were ten feet away.

Then I stopped.

The foyer lights were on. Ophelia Montgomery was sitting on the velvet settee by the door, wearing a sharp gray silk suit. Her posture was straight as a pin. Her pearls gleamed under the chandelier.

Behind her stood two of the family’s private security guards. Big, broad-shouldered men with their hands crossed in front of their waists.

And standing right beside them was Dr. Marcus Whitmore.

He was the Montgomery family’s personal physician. He had taken care of Ophelia for twenty years. He was an old man with thin gray hair and wire-rimmed glasses. In his right hand, he held a heavy black leather medical bag.

Ophelia set her porcelain teacup down on the glass table. The clatter was sharp in the quiet room.

She looked at my travel bag. Then she looked up at my face.

Her lips curled into a cold, cruel smile.

"Going somewhere, Julianna?" she said softly.