She Thought I Was Nobody at the Head Table—Then One Signet Ring Made Every Crime Family in the Ballroom Stand.

Victor kicked the front door of the lodge inward, his weapon raised. The smell hit him instantly—not the dust of an abandoned house, but fresh gunpowder and iron.

"Clear the perimeter!" Victor ordered his men.

The interior was in ruins. Antique furniture had been overturned, bookshelves torn from the walls, floorboards pried loose with crowbars. A violent, desperate search had taken place here within the last three hours.

In the center of the great room, dragged across a hand-woven Persian rug, was a broad smear of dark, wet blood leading toward the back terrace.

Julian knelt beside the stain, dipping two fingers into it. "Still warm. Less than an hour old."

Victor followed the trail out onto the stone patio. The rain was washing the blood into the drains, but near the railing lay a broken pair of steel-rimmed spectacles and an empty leather holster stamped with Marcus Moreau’s service number.

"He was taken," Victor said, his eyes scanning the pitch-black forest below. "Or killed and moved."

A sudden floorboard creaked in the upper loft.

In a fraction of a second, Victor raised his Beretta and fired a single round through the ceiling timbers above. A sharp gasp sounded, followed by the clatter of a shotgun hitting the floor.

"Don't shoot! God, please don't shoot!"

A young woman in a drenched trench coat stepped out onto the loft landing, hands raised high above her head. She was no older than twenty-four, with pale skin, striking green eyes, and soaking wet blonde hair plastered against her neck.

"Who are you?" Victor barked, keeping the barrel leveled at her chest.

"My name is Clara," she cried, trembling violently as she descended the wooden stairs. "Marcus told me to hide in the crawlspace if the silver cars came back!"

"The silver cars?" Julian repeated, stepping forward. "What silver cars?"

Clara looked at Victor, her eyes wild with terror. "Celeste Moreau’s personal escort. They broke in forty minutes ago. They dragged Marcus out into the courtyard. He was bleeding from his shoulder, but he wouldn't tell them where the girl was!"

Victor froze. The air turned freezing cold in his chest.

"What girl?" Victor asked, his voice dead and terrifyingly calm.

Clara swallowed hard, her gaze falling upon the open sapphire pendant clutched in Victor's left hand.