I think of Vincent falling at my feet. “Yes. I know how to use a gun.”
Fifteen minutes later, I’m dressed in dark jeans, a simple black top, and a leather jacket that conceals the small pistol holstered at my waist. I barely recognize the hard-eyed woman staring back at me from the mirror.
Nico emerges from his private bathroom, dressed in an impeccable suit. “Are you ready?”
I take a deep breath. “Yes.”
He steps closer. “Once we leave this room, there’s no turning back. You understand?”
“I know. But I need to hear it from her. I need to know why.”
He nods. “Then let’s go get your answers.”
As we leave the office, his hand finds the small of my back, a possessive, steadying gesture. We walk toward the private elevator, toward whatever awaits. I should be terrified. Instead, I feel oddly calm. I’m not being manipulated. I’m choosing my path. The elevator doors close, sealing us in together.
“Isabel has chosen her own tomb,” Nico says softly, his eyes meeting mine in the mirror.
A cold certainty runs through me. “Yes,” I agree. “She has.”
As we descend, I wonder what my father would think of me now, standing beside the man he once investigated, preparing to confront the wife who ordered his death. Would he understandthat sometimes; to find the truth, you have to embrace the darkness?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
LEA
I wait alonein the sterile silence of the Thorne Gallery’s main viewing room, my pulse a steady drumbeat beneath my skin. The space is cavernous and cold—white walls bearing priceless artwork, recessed lighting casting dramatic shadows across polished concrete floors. In the stillness, I can almost hear my own thoughts echoing.
My fingers trace the outline of the gun holstered at my waist, hidden beneath the borrowed leather jacket. Its weight is both reassuring and terrifying—a physical reminder of how far I’ve come from the eager journalist who walked into the Chicago Investigative Journal just months ago. That woman disappeared somewhere between watching Nico break a man’s fingers and pulling a trigger myself.
I position myself beneath a massive abstract canvas—swirls of crimson and black that remind me of blood in water. Appropriate, given what’s about to happen. The painting isworth more than I’d earn in a decade of journalism, but tonight it’s just backdrop for the theater we’re about to stage.
“They’re on their way up,” Blake’s voice comes through the nearly invisible earpiece Nico insisted I wear. “Two minutes.”
I take a deep breath, centering myself. I’ve rehearsed this performance in my head a dozen times during the car ride over. I know exactly what face to wear: the triumphant but traumatized daughter. The avenging angel who has just watched her father’s supposed killer die. The willing protégée ready to fall into Isabel’s arms and plans.
My stomach churns at the thought of seeing my mother.Eunji. Even her name feels foreign in my mind now. The woman who raised me, who taught me to write in Korean, who kissed my scraped knees and helped me with my college applications—that woman was a fiction. A cover story maintained for decades.
Behind that carefully crafted maternal mask lurks a spy who murdered her husband when he threatened to expose her. A woman who manipulated her own daughter’s career to serve as an asset in a global criminal network.
A soft ping announces the arrival of the private elevator.
The doors slide open silently, revealing Isabel first—elegant and lethal in a cream-colored pantsuit that makes her look like she’s stepped off a fashion runway rather than orchestrated multiple murders. Behind her stands Eunji, my mother, dressed in her familiar academic style: dark slacks and a tailored blazer, her silver-streaked hair pulled back in a neat bun.
My heart seizes at the sight of her. Despite everything I know, some childish part of me wants to run to her, to bury my facein her shoulder and breathe in her familiar scent of jasmine and green tea.
Instead, I force my body to tremble slightly. I let tears well in my eyes—easy given the genuine storm of emotions raging inside me.
“Lea,” my mother says, her voice carrying the same warm concern I’ve heard my entire life. She steps forward, arms outstretched. “My brave, brave girl.”
I allow myself to be folded into her embrace, fighting the instinct to stiffen at her touch. Her arms around me feel exactly as they always have—strong, protective, familiar. It takes everything I have not to recoil.
“It’s over,” I whisper, my voice deliberately unsteady. “He’s gone.”
She pulls back, holding me at arm’s length, her eyes scanning my face with what looks like genuine maternal worry. “Are you hurt? Did he touch you?”
The irony of her concern nearly makes me laugh. After all she’s done, after manipulating my entire life, she’s worried about whether Nicotouchedme.
“I’m fine,” I say, brushing away tears. “It happened just like they said it would. He never suspected a thing.”
