"Margaret?" I crawled to where she'd collapsed beside the overturned chair. "Are you hurt?"
"I—I don't think so." She was trembling. "Oh God. Oh God."
"Can you walk?"
She nodded.
Quentin pulled me to my feet, his hands running over me quickly, checking for injuries. "You're okay? You're not hit?"
"I'm fine. You?"
"Fine." But his eyes were wild, adrenaline-bright. "We need to go. Now."
Stone was already at the window, kicking out the remaining glass. "This way. Alley. Forrest's bringing the car around."
We climbed through—Isobel first, then Margaret, then me.
Quentin came last, pausing at the window to look back at the carnage.
Three bodies. Blood pooling on the hardwood. The smell of gunpowder and death.
"Move!" Quentin grabbed my hand.
We ran.
Down the alley. Around the corner. Into the waiting SUV where Serenity sat wide-eyed and pale.
"Go!" Stone shouted at Forrest. "Go, go, go!"
The SUV peeled out as sirens converged on the restaurant behind us.
∞∞∞
We'd survived.
Barely.
Exactly as Serenity had seen.
I was shaking. The adrenaline crash hit hard—hands trembling, breath coming in gasps.
Quentin pulled me against him, his arms tight around me. "You're okay. You're okay. We made it."
"Margaret." I managed. "Where are you?"
"I'm here." Margaret said from the back of the van, her voice small, broken. "I'm alive."
"Isobel?"
"Unharmed." Our lawyer's voice was steadier than it should be. "And I have everything. Every document. Every transfer record. The communication logs."
"But it's not enough, is it?" I looked at the papers scattered across the seat. "We can't prove who authorized those transfers. It could be Filomena. Could be Dominic. Could even be Silvio."
"The patterns suggest someone who's been in power for years," Isobel said carefully. "Silvio only got account access eight months ago. These transfers go back five years."
"So Dominic or Filomena," Quentin said.
"Most likely Filomena," I said, my voice low. "Dominic has always been more soldier than strategist. This level of planning, this careful covering of tracks—it feels like her."
