His fiancée ordered the bleeding maid to continue scrubbing—until the billionaire followed the trail of blood on the marble floor and uncovered the truth hidden beneath his family’s vast fortune.

PART 2

Ten years earlier, a warehouse fire in Providence had destroyed the accounting office where he worked. Investigators found his watch, his wallet, and human remains too damaged for visual identification. The dental comparison was called inconclusive, but everyone told Priya that hope could become a form of self-harm.

She had buried an empty coffin because there was nothing else to bury.

“Why is my brother’s name in your book?” she asked.

Odalys’s eyes flicked toward the front doors.

Weston closed the ledger. “Answer her.”

“I have never heard of Marcus Osei.”

“You looked at Priya when you saw the name,” Wren said.

Odalys’s composure cracked. “This is insane. Someone has manufactured evidence to destroy me.”

Priya stood despite the dizziness. “Your father’s auction labels were under the service stairs. Your initials are beside stolen paintings. You attacked me over the box hiding this book.”

“You are a servant who has spent six years fantasizing that proximity to this family gives you importance.”

“Enough,” Weston said.

Odalys stared at him. “You believe her?”

He looked down at the silk tie soaked around Priya’s hand. “I believe what you did in front of my mother. I believe the records I am holding. And I believe the fear on your face.”

Something hardened in Odalys. She drew a small silver remote from the folds of her gown.

Priya saw her thumb move. “Weston—”

Odalys pressed the button.

Metal shutters crashed over the windows. The front and garden doors locked with heavy bolts. Music stopped outside. Guests screamed as barriers separated them from the house.

A screen rose from the open floor compartment and flickered to life. The image showed Weston’s yacht, the North Star, moving through gray water. Silas Jr. was tied to the helm, tape covering his mouth. Beside him, bound to a steel chair, sat a gaunt man with a crescent scar below his jaw.

Priya’s knees weakened.

Marcus had gotten that scar in a childhood fall. Priya had held a towel under his chin while he told jokes to stop her crying.

“Marcus.”

The man on the screen lifted his head as if he had heard her.

A digital timer appeared in one corner. *19:42.*

Odalys’s father, Everett Vane, stepped into view. He wore a rain jacket and held a transmitter connected to yellow cylinders fixed around the fuel hatch.

“Bring the black ledger to the south dock,” he said through the screen. “Odalys leaves with it. If police, harbor patrol, or private security approach the yacht, the North Star burns.”

Weston faced Odalys. “You took Silas Jr.”

“Father took precautions.”

“And Marcus?” Priya demanded.

Odalys gave her a pitying look. “Your brother was very talented with numbers. He was also incapable of minding his own business.”

Priya stepped toward her, but Weston caught her uninjured arm.

“Alive,” he said quietly. “You help him by staying alive.”