Chapter 3 - the silver tag
Willa stared at Jared, the breath caught in her throat. "What does my mother have to do with any of this?"
"Answer the question," Jared commanded.
"She died when I was seven!" Willa snapped, stepping back so his hand fell away from her. "I grew up in the state foster system in Queens. I don't have family. I don't have money. I have a shared two-room apartment above a dry cleaner's and twenty-two hundred dollars in debt. My mother was a seamstress named Clara. That's it."
Jared didn't blink. He turned to the console, his large hands moving across the mechanical keyboard with practiced authority. "Compound 88-B is a proprietary neurotoxin developed by my family’s legal shell corporation six years ago. It’s strictly cataloged. Only three people have the clearance codes to release a batch from the Long Island facility."
"And you think one of them gave it to your dog?"
"I know one of them did," Jared said grimly. "Brutus doesn't eat food from strangers. He only accepts meals prepared in this kitchen, handled by two people: my head of household, and Miles Drummond."
Willa frowned, looking down at Brutus. The mastiff had settled on the floor beside her again, his heavy jowls resting against her shins, his breathing deep and steady for the first time in weeks.
"If someone was poisoning him for four months," Willa said, her professional instincts kicking in over her fear, "the liver enzymes would show a steady accumulation. Do you have his recent blood work?"
"In my study," Jared replied.
He led her through a set of double doors into a massive, wood-paneled library. A roaring gas fireplace cast amber light across floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and heavy leather armchairs. Jared opened a mahogany credenza, pulled out a thick white medical binder, and set it on the desk.
Willa opened the folder. The lab results from three different high-end Manhattan animal hospitals were neatly filed.
She scanned the metabolic panels, her finger running down the numbers. "Elevated alanine aminotransferase. Severe drop in white blood cells. Exactly what aconite toxicity looks like." She turned the page to the clinic admission forms.
Then her finger stopped.
On the bottom of the intake form from Manhattan Veterinary Specialists, dated nine weeks ago, was a signature authorizing experimental plasma therapy.
The signature wasn't Jared Kensington's.
It was signed: *Julian Kensington.*
Willa looked up. "Who is Julian?"
Jared’s entire demeanor shifted. The cold, controlled mob boss seemed to freeze from the inside out. His eyes fixed on the signature on the page, the veins in his neck bulging against his dark tattoos.
"Julian was my older brother," Jared said, his voice dropping into a register so dark it sent a shiver down Willa's spine.
"Was?"
"He died ten years ago," Jared said. "His car went off the Tappan Zee Bridge during a storm. The current carried the wreckage three miles downstream. They pulled the car out two days later. The cabin was crushed."
"Did they find his body?" Willa asked quietly.
Jared didn't answer immediately. He stared at the signature on the paper.
"No," he said finally. "The windshield was shattered. The river was moving at ten knots. We held an empty-casket funeral in St. Patrick’s Cathedral."
Willa looked back down at the ink on the paper. "This isn't an old document, Mr. Kensington. This was signed in person at an upper east side clinic fifty-four days ago. Look at the clinic's reception stamp."
Before Jared could touch the paper, the heavy study doors burst open.
Miles stood in the threshold. His coat was off, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his forearms. His knuckles were bruised, and his breathing was heavy.
"Paulie talked," Miles said, casting a brief, dark look at Willa.
"And?" Jared demanded.
"He didn't know who hired him directly. The money came through an encrypted escrow account out of Zurich. Five hundred thousand dollars to plant the tracker on Brutus, monitor the surveillance feeds on Miss Thornton, and put a bullet in her the second she walked onto this floor."
Miles paused, drawing a rough breath.
"Paulie said the client gave him one specific instruction if anything went wrong."
"What instruction, Miles?"
Miles reached into his pocket and pulled out an evidence bag containing a heavy, tarnished silver object he had taken from Paulie's locker downstairs.
He set it on the mahogany desk between them.
It was an antique silver dog tag, engraved with an ornate family crest—two crossed daggers beneath an open crown. The Kensington crest.
Beneath the crest was an engraved date: *October 14, 1995.*
Willa’s vision blurred.
October 14, 1995 was her date of birth.
"Paulie had orders," Miles said quietly, his voice tight with warning. "If she survived the night, he was supposed to leave this tag on her body."
Jared stared at the silver tag, then slowly raised his eyes to Willa. "Where were you born, Willa?"
"St. Mary’s Hospital," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "In Queens."
"St. Mary’s burned down in ninety-six," Jared said. "All birth records were lost."
Suddenly, Jared’s private desk phone rang. A red light flashed on the console—the secure line that only five people on earth possessed.
Jared picked it up, hitting the speaker button.
A woman’s voice, sharp, aristocratic, and trembling with fury, filled the study:
*"Jared. Tell me you didn't bring that girl into the city."*
Jared’s eyes narrowed. "Helena?"
May you like
It was Helena Kensington—his late brother’s widow, and the current chairwoman of Kensington Financial.
*"Get her out of Manhattan tonight,"* Helena hissed through the speaker. *"Before Richard finds out she's breathing."*
