Chapter 1 - The Silver Pieces
The first gunshot came from downstairs at 12:17 in the morning.
The second thing Savannah Reed heard was her three-year-old daughter laughing.
That terrified her more.
"Lucy!"
Savannah ran barefoot through the dark second-floor hallway of the Marlowe estate, one hand against the wall because the emergency lights had died with everything else. Rain hammered the tall windows overlooking Blackwater Bay. Somewhere below, men shouted over the shriek of a security alarm that worked for exactly four seconds before being strangled into silence.
Then came the crash of glass.
Savannah reached the east gallery.
"Lucy!"
A tiny figure appeared at the far end. Lucy stood in her yellow pajamas clutching Scout, her battered stuffed rabbit, beneath one arm. In her other hand she held two pieces of tarnished silver pressed together.
Behind her stood a man. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Gray beginning at his temples.
Savannah’s heart stopped because she knew that face.
Vincent Marlowe. The most feared man on the Rhode Island coast. The man whose name could make dockworkers lower their voices and businessmen suddenly remember appointments somewhere else.
Except Vincent was coming through the opposite doorway.
Savannah looked from one man to the other. Same height. Same eyes. Same mouth. Same streak of gray. The stranger had a scar on his jaw and blood soaking one sleeve, but otherwise it was like watching one man step out of his own reflection.
Vincent stopped dead. For the first time in seven weeks, Savannah saw fear on his face. Not concern. Not anger. Fear.
"Evan."
The stranger flinched.
Lucy looked between them. Then she held up the two silver pieces. "They fit."
A third gunshot exploded downstairs.
Vincent crossed the hallway in three strides and scooped Lucy into his arms. The stranger moved at the same instant, turning his injured side toward the staircase as though shielding the child from whatever was coming.
Savannah could barely breathe. She had arrived at the Marlowe estate seven weeks earlier looking for a housekeeping job. She had expected difficult employers. She had expected long hours. She had even expected secrets. She had never expected the biggest secret in the house to have Vincent Marlowe’s face.
Seven weeks earlier, Savannah had been sitting in the billing office of a hospital outside Hartford, Connecticut, trying not to cry in front of her mother.
Diane Reed had another dialysis appointment scheduled for Friday. There was also a prescription Savannah had not picked up yet because picking it up would mean choosing between medication and daycare.
At twenty-nine, Savannah had become skilled at doing arithmetic that always ended with something unpaid. Rent. Utilities. Medical bills. Groceries. Daycare. Gas. Something always had to lose.
"You’re doing it again," Diane murmured.
Savannah looked up. "Doing what?"
"Staring at the bill like you can intimidate it."
"I’m close."
Diane smiled weakly. "You always did have a mean stare."
Savannah laughed despite herself.
Her phone rang. The call came from her cousin Megan, who worked for a domestic staffing company.
"I found you something," Megan said.
"What kind of something?"
"A job."
"I have one."
"A job that pays almost three times what the diner pays."
Savannah sat straighter. "Doing what?"
"Live-in housekeeping."
"With Lucy?"
"Allowed."
That sounded too good. Savannah knew it immediately. "What’s wrong with it?"
Megan was quiet.
"There it is."
"Nothing’s wrong."
"You paused."
"The employer is Vincent Marlowe."
Savannah waited. "Should that mean something to me?"
"Savannah."
"What?"
"He controls the docks," Megan whispered into the receiver. "He controls the warehouses, the fuel terminals, and half the city council in Providence. People say his family built Blackwater Bay on blood money forty years ago."
"Is he going to hurt my daughter?" Savannah asked flatly.
"No," Megan hesitated. "He lives alone in that giant stone fortress on the cliff. He lost his twin brother four years ago in a boat explosion off the coast. Since then, he doesn't let anyone near the east wing. But he pays seven thousand a month, room and board included."
Seven thousand a month.
That meant dialysis for her mother. It meant a decent bed for Lucy. It meant breathing room.
"I'll take it," Savannah said.
Now, seven weeks later, standing in the pitch-black gallery of the Marlowe estate while heavy boots thundered up the mahogany staircase, Savannah realized how incomplete Megan's gossip had been.
Evan Marlowe wasn't dead. He was standing three feet away from her, bleeding through a dark corduroy jacket, holding a tarnished silver crest that matched the one Lucy had found in the garden hedge two days ago.
"Savannah, take Lucy and go into the panic room behind the library mantle," Vincent ordered, his voice low, steady, and vibrating with suppressed fury. "Now."
"Vincent—" Evan began, his voice rasping like gravel scraped over stone.
"Shut up, Evan," Vincent snapped, pulling a heavy black firearm from his shoulder holster without taking his eyes off the dark staircase. "You brought them to my house."
"They didn't follow me," Evan gritted out, leaning his weight against the wood-paneled wall. "They were already inside your gates before I crossed the seawall. It's an inside hit, Vincent. Your own guards pulled the power."
Downstairs, a heavy oak door was kicked open.
"Marlowe!" a harsh voice yelled from the foyer. "We know he's up there! Give us Evan and we leave the girl!"
Savannah's blood ran cold. She stepped forward, snatching Lucy from Vincent's arms and holding her tight against her chest. Lucy didn't cry. The little girl nestled her head into Savannah's neck, holding her stuffed rabbit, her tiny fingers clutching the matching silver piece.
"Who are they?" Savannah whispered, her eyes wide with terror.
"The syndicate from Boston," Vincent said, pulling a secondary radio from his belt and tossing it to Evan. "The same men who tried to kill my brother four years ago."
Evan caught the radio with his uninjured hand, his dark eyes meeting Vincent's across the narrow space. "I told you four years ago, brother. They didn't want the docks. They wanted the ledgers."
May you like
Vincent stared at his twin, the silence between them heavier than the storm raging outside. Four years of mourning, four years of carrying a family legacy built on a lie, shattered in a single dark gallery.
"We talk about your resurrection later," Vincent said coldly. "Right now, we survive the night."
