THE SOUND OF SHATTERING GLASS

The sirens grew louder, their red and blue lights flashing against the tall, arched windows of the ballroom.

I stared at the silver pocket watch in Martin’s trembling hand. The intricate engraving on the front—a compass rose—was unmistakable. I had placed that watch inside my father’s casket myself. I had watched the lid close.

"How do you have that?" I asked, the betrayal hitting me so hard I felt physically sick.

Martin closed his fist around the watch. "Eleanor, we need to leave. Right now. Before the police walk through those doors."

"I’m not going anywhere with you!" I screamed, backing away from him.

Sterling was sitting up now, wiping blood from his mouth with a torn cocktail napkin. He looked like a wounded hyena, cornered but still biting. "You see, Eleanor? The great Martin Hale. Your father’s loyal hound. He’s the one who paid Julianne. He’s the one who orchestrated the whole thing."

"Shut up, Sterling," Martin snapped, his voice suddenly hard and dangerous, a tone I had never heard him use in my entire life.

"Why should I?" Sterling sneered. "I’m going to prison either way. But I’m not going alone."

Two armed police officers burst through the front doors, flashlights cutting through the dim ballroom. "Nobody move! Hands where we can see them!"

The room dissolved into chaos again as officers began securing the area, taking statements, and moving toward Julianne, who was still weeping on the floor.

Martin moved fast. He grabbed my elbow, his grip tight but not painful. "Eleanor, if you want to know why your father died, you have to come with me right now. If they take me into custody, the truth dies with me."

I looked at him. The man who had taught me how to ride a bike. The man who had walked me down the aisle when my father was too weak to stand.

I looked at the silver watch in his hand.

"Five minutes," I whispered.

We slipped through the side doors into the darkened kitchen corridor, leaving the chaos of the ballroom behind. We hurried past the stainless steel prep stations, pushing out through the service exit into the pouring rain.

Martin led me to a black SUV idling in the driveway. He opened the passenger door, and I hesitated.

"Get in," a female voice said from the driver's seat.

I peered through the rain-streaked window. It was Harper.

"What is she doing here?" I demanded, turning to Martin. "She’s Sterling’s mistress!"

"She’s my daughter," Martin said quietly.

The rain seemed to stop falling for a second. The world tilted again.

"Your... daughter?" I stammered. "You don't have a daughter. You never married."

"Get in the car, Eleanor. Please," Harper said, her voice completely different from the breathless, flirty tone she had used all night. It was flat, professional, and urgent.

I slid into the passenger seat, my mind short-circuiting. Martin climbed into the back. Harper slammed the car into drive, and we tore down the gravel driveway, slipping past the police cruisers blocking the main gates.

"I don't understand," I said, shivering in my soaked dress. "Harper Montgomery..."

"Her real name is Harper Hale," Martin said from the backseat. "She’s been working deep cover inside Sterling’s operation for two years."

I turned to look at Harper. The beautiful, vapid woman who had flaunted my mother's sapphire ring was gone. Her posture was rigid, her eyes scanning the road with military precision.

"You slept with him to get information?" I asked, disgusted but fascinated.

"I didn't sleep with him," Harper said coldly. "Sterling is impotent. The affairs are entirely for show. He hires escorts and models to build his alpha-male image. He paid me fifty thousand a month to play the part of the devoted mistress."

I let out a shaky breath. "Then why did you have my mother’s ring?"

"Because he gave it to me as a prop," Harper said. "To humiliate you. To break you down so you wouldn't fight him for the company."

"Eleanor," Martin interrupted, leaning forward. He handed me the silver pocket watch. "Open it."

My hands shook as I took the heavy silver timepiece. I pressed the small latch on the side. The cover popped open.

There was no clock face inside.

Instead, there was a tiny, folded piece of microfiche film.

"Your father didn't die because of his money," Martin said, his voice heavy with grief. "He died because of what he found out about Vance Industrial's overseas shipping containers."

"Shipping containers?" I asked. "We ship industrial machinery."

"You ship empty boxes," Harper corrected, turning onto the highway. "Your father’s company is a front. It has been for thirty years."

"A front for what?" I demanded.

Martin met my eyes in the rearview mirror. "For the largest human trafficking syndicate on the East Coast. And your husband is the man running it."

I stared at the microfiche in my hand. "My father found out?"

"Yes," Martin said. "And he was going to turn Sterling in. That's why Sterling killed him."

"Then why did Sterling say you paid the nurse?" I asked, a new wave of panic rising.

Before Martin could answer, a massive black truck suddenly swerved across the median, its headlights blinding us. Harper yanked the steering wheel, screaming as our SUV spun out of control, tires screeching against the wet asphalt.