Something else had caught my attention.
The smell.
It was faint. Vanilla, coffee, and something floral. Jasmine, maybe. The scent was everywhere now that I’d found it, that same sweet-floral note I hadn’t smelled in years. I remembered it in hallways, classrooms, on the edge of a scarf that wasn’t mine.
My boots echoed against the marble as I crossed to the kitchen island.
There was a mug, empty but not yet washed, sitting beside the sink. The faintest stain of foam still clung to the inside, the shape of a small heart traced into it. A latte. Carefully made.
No one Roman hired would have done that.
I stared at it for a long moment. My throat went dry.
“Find anything?” Dmitri asked from behind me.
I didn’t answer right away, but I could feel Roman’s eyes on my back.
“It’s nothing,” I said too quickly.
Roman chuckled. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Maybe I have,” I mumbled.
“Explain,” Dmitri said. His tone wasn’t a request.
I exhaled, staring at the mug. “She made coffee.”
Roman blinked. “And that means…?”
“She left a heart in the foam.”
Silence. Then Dmitri, dry as ever: “I fail to see the forensic significance of that.”
“It’s her,” I said quietly.
“Her who?” Roman asked, frowning.
I turned toward him. “Show me the photo again.”
He pulled it from his jacket and slid it across the island. The glossy image caught the light.
Her face was half-turned, blurred slightly, but the curve of her face, that posture—confident, like she owned the air she breathed.
I knew that stance. I’d hated that stance.
The memory hit me like a sucker punch.
We’d been seventeen at the time.
Me, the Markov family’s heir-in-waiting and her, the scholarship girl who didn’t know her place.
Back then, we’d gone to boarding school together. I’d ruled the place with quiet violence and a perfect smile.
And then there was her.
Kara Lennox.
Top of every class, infuriatingly composed, mouth always one step ahead of her fear.
