The rumble of a pickup truck shattered the afternoon quiet.

Audie was in the front garden, deadheading the roses. It was a punishment task Corine had assigned for the water spill.

She looked up. Arthur hopped out of his truck. He was holding a pink box. Donuts.

"Audie!" he waved, grinning like a golden retriever.

Panic seized her throat. She looked up at the second-floor balcony.

Basil was there. He was standing in the shadows of the awning, motionless. He was holding a letter opener, turning it over and over in his fingers.

Corine walked out the front door. She looked at Arthur, then at his truck, then at Audie.

"Is this the... suitor?" Corine asked. Her tone suggested she was looking at a cockroach.

Arthur walked up to the gate. "Hi. I brought these for Audie. Maple bars. Her favorite."

Audie felt Basil's gaze boring into the back of her skull. If she accepted them, Arthur was dead. Basil would destroy him.

She had to kill it. Now.

Audie dropped her shears. She turned her back on Arthur, refusing to even look at him. She crossed her arms, her posture a wall of ice.

Arthur's smile faltered. "I... I just wanted to see if you wanted to go to the fair."

Audie glanced over her shoulder, her expression one of utter disdain. She looked at his truck and wrinkled her nose, then looked down at her own dirt-stained hands as if they were more interesting than he was. The silent rejection was more brutal than any words.

Arthur stopped. The box of donuts lowered. "Audie?"

She simply turned and walked back toward the roses, dismissing him completely.

Corine let out a small, approving hum. "Well said, child."

Arthur turned red. He looked at Audie's back with hurt confusion, then threw the box of donuts into the trash bin by the gate.

"Fine," he said. "Forget it."

He got in his truck and peeled away, gravel spraying.

Audie watched him go. Her chest ached. He was a good man. And she had just crushed him to save him.

Corine patted her shoulder. "Good girl. You're learning."

Corine went inside.

Audie looked up at the balcony. Basil was gone.

A moment later, Mercer, the head of security, walked up to her. He handed her a folded newspaper clipping.

"From Mr. Dean," Mercer said. "A reward."

Audie opened it.

It wasn't cash. It was a small article from the local business journal. The garage where Arthur worked had been abruptly shut down by the county inspector for "critical safety violations." Effective immediately.

"Why?" Audie whispered. "I did what he wanted."

"Mr. Dean's methods are not for public discussion," Mercer said.

Audie crumpled the paper. Rage, hot and white, flared in her gut. She marched toward the house. She was going to scream at him. She didn't care about the cover.

She stopped outside the library door.

"Short the stock," Basil's voice floated out. It was crisp. Clear. "Sterling Industries. They're going to miss their earnings report on Monday. Do it now. Leverage everything in the blind trust."

Audie froze.

He sounded... sane. Perfectly, terrifyingly sane.

He wasn't a madman lashing out. He was a shark circling the water.

She backed away. If he was sane, then everything he did to her-the safe room, the threats, the games-wasn't illness. It was choice. Her mission parameters shifted in an instant. This wasn't a recovery operation. It was a war against an enemy combatant hiding in plain sight.

She went back to her room. She retrieved the donuts from the trash. She sat on her bed and ate a maple bar, the tears streaming down her face mixing with the sugar glaze. The sweetness tasted like ash. She wasn't just mourning the mechanic; she was mourning the simplicity of the mission she thought she had.

The pharmacy smelled of antiseptic and fluorescent lights.

Audie moved quickly down the aisle. She grabbed a bottle of multivitamins. Then, checking the mirrors, she grabbed a packet of birth control pills.

She slipped the blister pack inside the vitamin box.

She couldn't get pregnant. Not by him. That would be the end of everything.

She paid with the cash allowance Corine gave her. She walked out into the parking lot.

A black Chevy Suburban screeched to a halt in front of her. The windows were tinted so dark they looked like ink.

The back door popped open.

"Get in," Mercer said from the driver's seat.

Audie clutched the paper bag to her chest. She climbed in.

The air conditioning was blasting. Basil sat in the corner, a laptop open on his knees. He was watching a live feed of the stock market.

He didn't look up. He held out his hand.

"Give it to me."

Audie's heart stopped. He knew about the pills.

She handed him the bag, her hand shaking.

Basil looked inside. He pulled out the vitamin bottle. He shook it.

"Vitamins?" He scoffed. "You think these will fix you?"

He tossed the bottle onto the seat next to him. He didn't open it. He didn't see the contraceptive hidden inside.

Audie let out a breath she didn't know she was holding.

Basil reached into his pocket. He pulled out a velvet box. He tossed it into her lap.

Audie opened it.

Inside lay a heavy gold bangle. In the center sat a ruby the size of a quail's egg. It was gaudy. Ostentatious.

"Put it on," he ordered.

Audie looked at him, then at the bracelet, and slowly shook her head.

"Put. It. On."

Audie hesitated. Basil grabbed her wrist. He snapped the bracelet shut.

Click.

It was tight. Too tight.

Audie felt a cold metal node pressing against the pulse point on her wrist.

Basil turned his laptop screen toward her. A map of the city was open. A bright red dot pulsed in the center. Beside it, a number: 110 BPM. He tapped a key, and a second graph appeared, showing the spike in her heart rate from the moment he had demanded the bag. He knew she'd been lying, but he said nothing about it.

"It tracks location," Basil said, his voice devoid of emotion. "And biometrics. If you take it off, it alerts me. If your heart rate spikes, it alerts me. If you leave the estate perimeter without authorization..."

He let the sentence hang.

"You're tagging me," Audie whispered, the words escaping before she could stop them. "Like a dog."

"Like an investment," Basil corrected. "You're expensive, Audie. I need to protect my assets."

He leaned back, closing his eyes. "You won't be serving at the Gala tonight. You'll stay in your room."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want anyone else looking at what's mine."

The car pulled up to the side gate. Mercer unlocked the door.

"Get out."

Audie stumbled out onto the pavement. The Suburban sped away toward the main entrance.

A sleek silver sedan was pulling in. The window rolled down.

Corine Morrow sat in the back seat. She was wearing sunglasses, though the sun had set. She looked at Audie.

Her gaze dropped to Audie's wrist. To the ruby pulsing in the twilight.

Corine's lips curved into a smile that was all teeth.

Audie yanked her sleeve down. But it was too late. The hunter had seen the bait.

The Grand Hall was a sea of silk and diamonds.

Corine Morrow glided through the crowd. She wore a dress made of emerald silk that looked like liquid money. As the hostess, she was in her element, a shark in her own aquarium.

She found her mother near the champagne tower.

"Eleanor, darling," Corine purred, kissing the air near her mother's cheek.

Eleanor stiffened. "Corine. I see you're enjoying the party."

"Immensely. But where is Basil?"

"He's around."

Basil descended the grand staircase. He wore a tuxedo that fit him like armor. He looked bored. Dangerous.

Corine intercepted him at the bottom of the stairs.

"Basil. You look... alive."

"Corine." He didn't stop walking.

"I saw something interesting at the gate," Corine said, matching his pace. "Our little ward. The mousey one. She was wearing a bracelet."

Basil stopped. He turned to her slowly.

"A Pigeon Blood Ruby," Corine continued, her voice carrying over the low hum of the party. "Vintage setting. Looked remarkably like the Dean family collection."

Eleanor appeared at Basil's elbow. "What? A servant wearing family jewels? That's theft."

"I gave it to her," Basil said. His voice was ice.

"You gave a charity case a fifty-thousand-dollar bracelet?" Corine laughed. "What exactly does she do for you, Basil? Polish the silver, or something else?"

Heads were turning.

Audie was watching from the gallery above. She heard every word.

She was trapped. If Eleanor investigated, she'd see the tracker. If Corine kept digging, she'd find the truth.

Audie ran back to her room. She tore through her first aid kit.

She found a roll of beige medical tape.

She wrapped her wrist. Layer after layer, covering the gold, covering the ruby, until it looked like a thick, clumsy bandage for a sprain.

She grabbed a bucket and a mop. She smeared some soot from the fireplace on her cheek.

She walked down the back stairs and into the edge of the ballroom.

"There she is!" Corine pointed.

Audie shrank back, holding the bucket.

Corine marched over. "Let's see it."

Audie held up her taped wrist. She sniffled. She pointed at the stairs, then at her wrist, then made a falling motion, her face a pantomime of pained apology.

Corine narrowed her eyes. "I saw a ruby."

Audie looked confused, then pointed at a nearby chandelier, then back at her wrist, as if to suggest it was merely a reflection.

"Unwrap it," Corine commanded. She reached out.

Basil stepped between them. He blocked Corine's hand.

"Enough," he said. "You're making a scene, Corine. And you're boring me."

He offered his arm to Corine. "Dance with me. Or leave."

Corine looked at Basil, then at Audie. She smiled. She knew she had hit a nerve.

"I'd love to dance."

She took Basil's arm. As they walked onto the floor, Corine looked back over her shoulder at Audie.

It wasn't a look of defeat. It was a look of target acquisition.

Audie clutched her bucket. Her wrist throbbed beneath the tape.