Chapter 4

The ballroom had gone very cold.

Julian stood at the center of the growing circle of distance between him and everyone else, and he could see the way the guests were looking at him now—not with fear, not with outrage, but with a kind of careful assessment, the way you look at something that might be dangerous and might be broken and might be both.

"According to the official record," Thomas said, "Elena's mother died in a car accident on the border road between Switzerland and Italy. A single-vehicle collision. Wet asphalt. A curve that was known to be dangerous. Open-and-shut."

"It was October," Elena said. "My mother was an excellent driver. She'd driven that route forty times before."

"The car had been tampered with," Thomas said. "Brake lines. We didn't find out until a mechanic who'd worked on the vehicle came forward twelve months later. He'd been paid to look the other way, and he'd been carrying the guilt like a stone in his chest ever since."

"Who paid him?" Julian asked.

Thomas looked at him.

"You know who."

The words were a door closing.

"My father," Julian whispered. "You're saying my father killed Elena's mother."

"I'm saying your father ordered her death," Thomas said. "I'm saying he found out she was Blackwater—found out she'd been carrying documents that mentioned his partners' names—and he made a call. He was careful. He was always careful. But careful men still leave marks, and marks can be followed."