Chapter 2 - THE GHOST ON THE BALCONY
The man on the balcony reached into his dark jacket.
My instincts took over before my conscious mind even registered the movement.
I didn’t wait to see if it was a gun.
I didn’t wait to see if he was aiming at me or Ethan.
In a fraction of a second, the quiet housekeeper vanished, and the operative I had buried took the wheel.
I grabbed Ethan’s lapel, twisting my body and driving my shoulder into his chest.
I forced him backward, out of the direct line of sight from the balcony.
We hit the floor behind a massive marble pillar just as the ballroom erupted into chaos.
Guests screamed.
Glass shattered as people knocked over tables in their panic to flee.
But there was no gunshot.
No deafening crack of a rifle.
Just the chaotic stampede of three hundred wealthy elites losing their minds.
I kept one hand firmly pressed against Ethan’s chest, keeping him pinned to the marble floor.
He was breathing hard, his eyes wide, looking at me like he was seeing a stranger.
Because he was.
"Stay down," I commanded.
My voice was sharp. Authoritative. Stripped of the polite deference I had used for eleven months.
I cautiously peered around the edge of the pillar.
The balcony was empty.
The man from Philadelphia—Silas—was gone.
But he had left something behind.
Hanging over the brass railing of the balcony, catching the warm light of the crystal chandeliers, was a silver chain.
Dangling from the end of it was a military dog tag.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
That wasn't just any dog tag.
It was the one I had ripped off Silas’s neck the night I watched a building collapse on top of him.
The night I was told there were no survivors.
"What is going on?" Ethan demanded, pushing himself up onto his elbows. "Who was that?"
Before I could answer, Margaret appeared.
She moved through the panicked, fleeing crowd with the calm precision of a ghost.
She stopped right beside us, her silver hair perfectly in place, her eyes cold.
"He left a message," Margaret said, her voice barely audible over the screaming guests.
I stood up, pulling Ethan with me, keeping my body angled between him and the open room.
"He's dead," I said to Margaret. "I saw him die."
"You saw what he wanted you to see," she replied.
Ethan looked furiously between the two of us. "Someone better start explaining. Right now. Because that man on the balcony? I know him."
I froze.
Margaret went completely still.
I turned to Ethan. "What do you mean you know him?"
Ethan brushed the dust off his tuxedo, his jaw tight. "That’s Arthur’s new security consultant. My father hired him three weeks ago."
The air left my lungs.
Three weeks ago.
The exact time Vanessa started getting aggressive. The exact time the pressure in this house began to change.
I looked at Margaret.
She reached into her coat and pulled out a small, heavy object wrapped in black fabric.
"He didn't just come for you," Margaret whispered, pressing the object into my hand. "He came for what you stole from him in Philadelphia. And Arthur Whitmore helped him find you."
I unwrapped the fabric.
It was a child's silver locket.
Dented. Burned at the edges.
The one piece of evidence I thought I had destroyed.
And right behind us, a cold voice echoed through the emptying ballroom.
"I wouldn't touch that if I were you."
May you like
I turned.
Silas was standing at the bottom of the staircase, holding Vanessa by the throat.
