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.

Deep within the stone-walled wine cellar of the estate, the air was cold and still. This was Audie's only sanctuary, a known dead zone for all electronic signals.

She sat on an overturned crate, her back to a rack of priceless Bordeaux. The heavy oak door was bolted from the inside. She pulled her hoodie up and began to peel off the tape from her wrist.

On the screen of her micro-tablet, an encrypted chat window was open. A single blinking cursor waited.

When the ruby bracelet was revealed, she slipped her entire hand into a silver Faraday bag, cutting the signal cold. She had exactly ninety seconds before Basil's system would register an anomaly.

She typed furiously.

<Tracker active. Biometric. GPS. Custom lock. Cannot remove.>

The reply from her handler, Leo, was instantaneous.

<Acknowledged. Men like Dean don't give jewelry to staff. They give it to...>

The text stopped. The implication hung in the digital silence.

<Is your cover compromised?> Leo typed.

Audie pulled her hand away from the keyboard. The mission is my cover, she thought, but didn't type it. It was too close to a lie.

<That's not a no,> Leo's text appeared, as if he'd read her mind. <He's a mark, Audie! He's the target! You don't fall for the target.>

<I'm not falling for him!> she typed back, her fingers stabbing the screen. <I'm surviving him!>

There was a pause.

<Chatter on the dark web,> Leo sent. <Bounty on The Auditor. Five million. Unknown source. If they link you to the Dean estate...>

Audie felt the blood drain from her face.

<Need the files,> she typed, her focus narrowing. <The original hack that crashed his stock. Leverage. Need it to trade for my freedom.>

<Be careful,> Leo wrote. <Take the ceramic blade. It's in the dead drop.> The dead drop was a hollowed-out brick behind a loose wine rack.

<No. If he finds a weapon, I'm dead.>

<Take it, Audie.>

<My cover is my weapon,> she typed, and terminated the connection.

She re-taped her wrist, pulled her hand from the bag, and slid the tablet back into its waterproof pouch. She had been dark for eighty-two seconds.

She slipped out of the cellar and headed for the main floors. As she reached the top of the service stairs, she froze.

A new red laser grid crisscrossed the hallway. He had upgraded the internal perimeter while she was gone. He hadn't detected her location, but he had detected the signal drop.

She was trapped in the service wing.

She had to find another way back to her room.