For an instant, the killing intent in the room was suffocating.

Slade laughed harder.

“The police are coming. Go on. Kill me. I dare you.”

Lucian straightened.

“If you won’t talk, you’ll never talk again.”

He walked out.

Behind him, two guards pulled on gloves. One held Slade down while the other cut out his tongue.

They stopped the bleeding with the practiced efficiency of men performing an ordinary task.

Lucian never looked back.

I thought of the woman in the hospital bed.

Now Slade knew what that felt like.

Outside, Detective Hayes was approaching with roughly twenty armed officers.

Lucian lit a cigarette. Night air moved around him as he exhaled, his mouth curving faintly.

“I told you we had plenty of time. Wait and see, little liar.”

I stood behind him, overwhelmed by a memory.

The night I had become CEO, I’d gone to a mountain road race without revealing my identity.

Lucian had raced me, lap after lap.

In the end, he beat me by a tenth of a second.

He climbed out, took off his helmet, and shook out his hair. Under the moonlight, he looked unbearably arrogant.

“You won. You’re CEO now. I suppose we’ll be doing more business together.”

He leaned against his car, holding his helmet, and looked at me. His eyes were dark, concealing something that might have been a smile.

“You’ve beaten me for two years. But we have a long future ahead of us. Wait and see.”

I had taken it as a provocation.

I remembered every word.

“Mr. Blackwood.” Hayes held up his warrant. “We received a tip that Victor Slade is on your property. Please cooperate with our search.”

“A tip from a concerned citizen?” Lucian flicked ash from his cigarette. “A Whitmore, by any chance?”

“Our informant’s identity is confidential. It’s none of your business.”

Lucian gave a cold little laugh.

Two guards dragged Slade out of the warehouse. His face was a bloody mess. The knife remained in his hand.

Hayes’s expression changed.

“You tortured him?”

Lucian didn’t answer.

“Detective.” A calm voice came from behind us. “Please stop threatening my unarmed client.”

Adrian Shaw.

Blackwood Holdings’ legal counsel, and Lucian’s personal attorney.

Hayes looked as though a headache had just arrived.

Adrian was the most expensive lawyer in Fairhaven, and he didn’t lose. During one notorious case, he had represented the plaintiff and somehow sent the defendant, the opposing lawyer’s entire family, and the original presiding judge to prison.

He pointed at the knife.

“A serial killer broke into my client’s home and attacked him. As you can see, he’s still holding the weapon. My client suffered a knife wound.”

His expression remained perfectly composed.

“My fragile, innocent client defended himself against a threat to his life. What crime are you accusing him of?”

Fragile.

Innocent.

I looked at Lucian, then at the half-dead man on the ground.

Hayes did the same. His gaze paused on the small cut on Lucian’s hand.

He clearly understood.

But a devil with a lawyer like Adrian was almost impossible to touch.

Slade deserved what he had gotten. Hayes still needed him alive, though. Too many questions remained unanswered.

“Take him to the secure hospital unit,” he ordered.

As the officers prepared to leave, Lucian called after him.

“Nathan Hayes.”

Hayes stopped. Apparently, very few people had addressed him by his full name in years.

“You find a missing woman, and you don’t even verify her identity?”

The accusation hung between them.

Because of that mistake, Julian had nearly killed an innocent girl.

Hayes rubbed his nose.

“That was an oversight. We’ve repeated the DNA testing. She isn’t Stella. She’s been transferred to a secure hospital under police protection while we establish her identity.”

There had been pressure, of course. Slade was cunning. The woman had my build and my clothes. Even my husband had identified her as me, so the police hadn’t checked further.

Lucian looked at him.

“Did he mistake her for Stella?”

A pause.

“Or did he choose to?”