Back in the car, Julian didn’t start the engine immediately.

He rubbed the back of his neck and frowned.

“Do you have any incense? Something to help me sleep? I keep having nightmares about Stella.”

His face was pale. He glanced around as though he thought my ghost might be watching him.

I stood right behind him.

Vivian fingered her prayer beads.

“She was useless alive. What can she do dead?”

Her expression hardened.

“If that bracelet weren’t with Lucian, we could have finished it. Destroyed her soul so she could never be reborn. Slade, that traitor.”

At last, I understood.

She had commissioned Slade to make the bracelet from my remains.

He had gotten greedy and sold it at the midnight market instead.

Then it had reached Lucian through the monk’s charity sale.

“Slade is finished,” Julian said. “And we can’t take the bracelet from Lucian.”

Vivian considered that, then smiled.

“We’ll find another way. Let Pearl win him over. Once he’s on our side, everything will be easier.”

“He already loves someone.”

“So? A man in his position only has one woman? The woman in his heart and the woman in his bed don’t have to be the same person.”

I remembered Lucian’s indifference toward Pearl.

Their plan had a few problems.

Julian drove back to the Whitmore house.

Vivian glanced toward Richard’s study before lowering her voice.

“I overheard your father talking to the board. They want to remove you as acting CEO. First Southbank, then the duchess. The losses are enormous. Nothing has gone right since Stella died. That girl is still bringing us bad luck.”

Even dead, apparently everything was my fault.

“You need to prove yourself,” she continued. “Otherwise, your father and I won’t be able to protect you.”

Julian looked confident.

“I have a plan.”

Months earlier, he had set his sights on a government development contract.

The centerpiece was an enormous landmark theme park. Once it was built, surrounding property values would soar. Buying up that land in advance promised a fortune.

The problem was funding.

The Whitmore Group couldn’t finance a project of that size. If our capital ran out halfway through, we would miss the completion deadline and risk being blacklisted from future government contracts.

I had opposed it.

Julian had agreed with me to my face, then used his connections to sign the deal behind my back.

By the time I found out, the contract was binding.

Before I died, I had been trying to clean up the mess.

Vivian remembered.

“But we still don’t have the money. The government gave us two weeks to break ground. If we miss the deadline, they’ll cancel the agreement.”

“I’ll have the financing in a few days.”

He sounded utterly certain.

His abilities at work had always been mediocre.

I had known it, even when I loved him. I simply hadn’t wanted to look too closely.

Anyone with real investment experience would understand the risks. Who was going to pour tens of billions of dollars into his scheme?

Julian offered no explanation.

Instead, he went to my studio at the villa and switched on my computer.

He knew my passwords.

I had never kept anything from him.

The first message in my inbox was from Dr. Finch, sent a week earlier.

It was an invitation to the anniversary celebration, with a video attached.

The children appeared one after another.

They missed me. It had been two months since my last visit. One proudly held up a perfect test score. Another showed me something they had made.

I watched with tears in my eyes, reaching toward the screen.

Julian closed the video impatiently.

Then he replied from my account.

“Dr. Finch, this is Stella’s husband, Julian Whitmore. Unfortunately, her health prevents her from attending. She has asked me to come on her behalf, cut the cake, and give the children their gifts with Mr. L.”

Mr. L.

I looked at him sharply.

Why mention him?

Julian opened my encrypted records. Of course he knew that password too.

He scrolled through the accounts.

A satisfied smile spread across his face.

So that was it.

He had found himself a wealthy target.

Mr. L had invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the Starlight Project over the years. To Julian, that meant a man with deep pockets and a willingness to spend.

A potential investor.

A few hours earlier, I had been worried he would deceive my kind, unsuspecting friend.

Now I knew who my friend really was.

Julian wasn’t going to a fundraising meeting.

He was walking straight up to Fairhaven’s Devil and asking to be eaten.

For the first time in a long while, I had something to look forward to.