It vanished quickly.
“A dead man’s statement,” he said. “Convenient and impossible to question.”
“We also have the ledgers,” Mara said from behind him.
Julian glanced toward her.
“You were always better at surveillance than loyalty.”
“My loyalty is to the person who does not order civilians murdered.”
“Everyone in this room has benefited from decisions they prefer not to examine.”
Silas set down his knife.
“Do not confuse compromise with permission.”
Julian smiled.
“You inherited a kingdom built by men without your delicate distinctions. Now you want to wash the blood from the walls while continuing to live inside the palace.”
“Perhaps.”
“You cannot become legitimate by returning a few paintings and rescuing a widow.”
Evelyn felt Silas become still beside her.
Julian noticed too.
His smile widened.
“There it is,” he said. “The weakness.”
Silas’s voice lowered. “Choose your next words carefully.”
“You abandoned her once because your father understood what she could be used for. Now you bring her into this house and seat her beside you.”
Evelyn reached beneath the table and touched Silas’s wrist.
Not to seek protection.
To prevent him from reacting.
Julian continued.
“You paid her debt. You bought her jewelry. You exposed internal operations. What would you surrender next, Silas? The docks? The shipping companies? Your own men?”
Silas looked at Evelyn’s hand on his wrist.
Then he looked at Julian.
“What I surrender is my decision.”
“And what she costs us?”
Evelyn removed her hand and stood.
Every face turned toward her.
“I did not ask Silas to purchase my debt,” she said. “I did not ask to be protected. I did not ask to enter your world.”
Julian’s expression became almost sympathetic.
“No one does.”
“But I am here now.”
She placed Daniel’s original ledger on the table.
Julian’s eyes fixed on it.
“This contains the account numbers, buyers, shell companies, customs officers, and property transfers connected to your operation.”
Several people around the table shifted.
Julian glanced at them.
Evelyn saw calculation passing between faces.
Fear changed ownership quickly.
“You have copies?” Julian asked.
“Many.”
It was a lie.
Silas did not reveal it.
“Where?” Julian asked.
“One with the police. One with the press. One with an international art-crime unit.”
Another lie.
Mara’s face remained perfectly neutral.
Julian’s hand moved beneath the table.
Silas said, “Do not.”
A knife appeared in Julian’s hand.
At the same moment, lights throughout Vale House went dark.
Glass shattered.
Someone shouted.
Evelyn heard Silas push back his chair.
A hand seized her arm.
Not Silas’s.
She drove her heel backward and struck a man’s shin. He cursed and pulled harder.
Gunfire erupted in the corridor.
Emergency lights flashed red.
Julian had not come to dinner alone.
His people were already inside the house.
Evelyn grabbed the heavy silver candlestick from the table and swung it.
It struck her attacker across the face.
He released her.
Silas appeared through the red darkness, caught the man by the collar, and slammed him into the wall.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“No.”
“Stay behind me.”
“I am beginning to hate that sentence.”
“You may hate it after we survive.”
Mara fired through the open doorway.
“Julian is heading toward the lower garage!”
Silas looked at Evelyn.
“Go with Mara.”
“No.”
“Evelyn.”
“You said no private decisions.”
“This is not a decision. This is a gunfight.”
“Then stop discussing it.”
She picked up the fallen ledger.
Silas stared at her for half a second.
Then, despite everything, he smiled.
“My father would have been terrified of you.”
“Your father had excellent instincts.”
They followed Mara into the corridor.
Chapter Eight
The Price of Loyalty
Julian escaped Vale House through a service tunnel.
He took three vehicles, twenty loyal men, and the original ledger Evelyn had been carrying.
The object he did not take was the portable recorder hidden inside her evening bag.
His confession had been incomplete, but his reaction during dinner proved he feared the evidence. More importantly, cameras in the dining room captured the attack.
By sunrise, every leader in the Vale organization had chosen a side.
Most chose Silas.
Some chose Julian.
A few attempted to choose no one and discovered neutrality was a luxury unavailable during civil war.
Silas moved Evelyn to a fortified apartment above the old customs building.
She refused to remain there.
He locked the elevator.
She found the emergency stairs.
He assigned two guards to the door.
She convinced one that Mara had summoned him and walked past the other carrying a tray.
When Silas found her in the strategy room, he closed his eyes.
“You escaped a secure apartment.”