The first attack hit before Vivian Rose could decide whether Sebastian Knox was protector or captor. A shot shattered the lock. Sebastian Knox covered her with his body, returned fire once, and forced a path into the building's service corridor.
They escaped with the sealed record but not the evidence that proved who had signed it. Inside a guarded room, Sebastian Knox traced its payments and erased seals. Every path led back to someone Vivian Rose had defended for years.
Sebastian Knox placed a contract beside the evidence. For thirty days they would appear united, share information, and never move without security. In return, he would give her access to the one archive capable of proving Sebastian, the rival beside her, helped fake her death but never revealed what he demanded in return. The final clause was strangely specific: neither of them could pretend the attraction between them was part of the agreement.
She laughed once, without humor. “You wrote a rule against falling for you?”
“I wrote a rule against lying about it.”
Their first move together became another ambush. A messenger slipped Vivian Rose a key engraved with the date of her greatest loss. It opened a private box containing photographs of Sebastian Knox meeting the person who had arranged the orchestra stopped when Vivian walked in and purchased the building during her ex-fiancé's toast.
She pressed the photographs against his chest. “Tell me why I should not leave.”
He did not deny the meeting. He stepped close enough that anger became heat and covered her hand with his over the evidence. His pulse beat once beneath her palm, too fast for the cold man everyone else feared.
“I went there to stop what happened to you,” he said. “I failed. I will not fail twice.”
The lights died before she could decide whether to believe him. His phone lit with a live video of the person Vivian Rose trusted most bound to a chair.
“You have until midnight,” the caller said. “Sebastian, the rival beside her, helped fake her death but never revealed what he demanded in return. Ask Sebastian Knox what else he is hiding. Then decide which one of you I kill first.”