The silence in the car was heavy.

Sienna shivered. The heat was on, but the chill was deep inside her.

Julian watched her. She looked like a drowned rat, but she held herself like a queen in exile. He took off his tuxedo jacket. It was warm from his body, smelling of expensive wool and that faint tobacco scent.

He tossed it into her lap.

"Put it on before you ruin my upholstery."

Sienna pulled the jacket around her shoulders. It engulfed her. The warmth was instant, overwhelming.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"I don't know," she said honestly. "The library is closed."

"Home?"

"Not an option."

Julian's phone buzzed. He answered it on speaker.

"Julian!" It was his sister, Elena. She sounded frantic. "Leo just fired his fifth tutor. He hacked the school district's server and changed his grades to emojis. You have to do something."

Julian rubbed his temples. "I'll handle it."

He hung up. He looked at Sienna. He remembered the books she was holding that day on campus. Advanced Game Theory. Macroeconomics.

"You're a student at NYU. Business?"

"Yes."

"Grades?"

"4.0."

Julian studied her. She was desperate. He could smell it. But she wasn't begging.

"My brother is fifteen. He is a genius, and he is a nightmare. He needs a tutor who can outsmart him."

Sienna looked at him. "And?"

"And you have nowhere to go. I have a guest house. You tutor Leo. I give you a roof and a salary."

Sienna's mind raced. The Vanderbilt estate. The archives. It was the perfect cover.

"I'm expensive," she said.

Julian laughed. It was a dry, dark sound. "I'm a Vanderbilt. Try me."

"Triple the standard rate. And nobody knows who I am. I'm just the help."

"Done."

The car turned smoothly, heading toward Long Island. Sienna leaned back into the leather seat, pulling his jacket tighter. She was walking into the lion's den.

Good thing she was the lion tamer.

The Vanderbilt estate was less a home and more a fortress. Stone walls, iron gates, and shadows that seemed to stretch too long across the lawns.

Sienna stood in the grand foyer. Her sneakers squeaked on the marble.

"This way," the butler said, his nose wrinkled in distaste at her attire.

He led her to the East Wing. The door to Leo's room was covered in caution tape.

Sienna pushed it open.

The room was dark, lit only by the glow of six monitors. Techno music blared. A boy sat in a gaming chair, his back to her.

"Get out," Leo said without turning around. "I'm busy."

Sienna walked over to the wall. She found the master breaker for the room.

She flipped it.

The music died. The screens went black.

"Hey!" Leo spun around. He was lanky, with messy hair and Julian's sharp eyes. "Do you know how much progress I just lost?"

"You can recover it if you know the kernel patch sequence," Sienna said calmly. She grabbed a piece of chalk and wrote a complex algorithm on his blackboard wall. "Solve for X. You have three minutes. If you fail, I delete your Steam account."

Leo stared at the board. "That's... that's doctoral level calculus."

"Two minutes, fifty seconds."

Leo scrambled for a marker. He started writing furiously.

Upstairs, in the study, Julian watched the security feed.

"She turned off his power," Maverick said, sounding impressed.

Julian zoomed in on the screen. He watched Sienna leaning against the desk, her arms crossed. She looked bored.

"She's not teaching him," Julian murmured. "She's breaking him."

That night, dinner was a formal affair.

Ivy had let herself in, uninvited, wearing a dress that was too tight and laughing too loud. She sat in the lounge, swirling a martini, waiting for Julian to acknowledge her. When Sienna walked in, wearing a simple black dress provided by the staff, the room went quiet.

"Oh," Ivy said, looking Sienna up and down with disdain. "The tutor. I didn't realize the help was allowed in the family wing."

"Julian invited me," Sienna said, bypassing the lounge to take a seat at the far end of the dining table.

"It must be overwhelming," Ivy followed her, leaning against the doorframe. "All this... luxury. Compared to what you're used to."

Sienna picked up her fork. "Luxury is a state of mind, Miss Vance. Desperation, however, is a perfume. And you're wearing too much of it."

Julian entered just in time to hear the retort. He choked on his wine, covering his mouth with a napkin to hide a smirk. He didn't offer Ivy a seat.

After dinner, Sienna escaped to the gardens. She needed air. The house was full of ghosts, and she was adding one more.

She walked toward the old oak tree near the perimeter wall.

A twig snapped behind her.

She spun around. Julian was there. He moved silently for a big man.

He stepped closer, forcing her back until her shoulders hit the rough bark of the tree. He placed a hand next to her head, boxing her in.

"You have a sharp tongue, Sienna."

"I thought you hired me for my brain."

"I'm starting to wonder," he leaned down, his lips inches from her ear, "what else you're hiding under those oversized clothes."