Cleo Radner was sitting at the island in Elise's chenille robe. Bare feet hooked on the bar stool rung. A glass of wine in one hand, red to the halfway mark, and a single sheet of paper lying flat on the counter in front of her. The paper had a signature line. Elise's name was printed beneath it.

Three days later. The Hudson River Valley.

Landon Morrow was not a man who went into a concrete box without a fight.

During his transit from the federal courthouse in Foley Square to the Metropolitan Correctional Center, a fuel truck deliberately broadsided the transport van on the FDR Drive. Two corrupt correction officers, paid out of an untraceable account Landon kept for absolute emergencies, unlocked his restraints in the smoke and confusion.

By midnight, Landon was inside an unmarked black SUV heading north on Route 9, clutching a burner phone and a Glock 19.

He was bleeding from a cut across his forehead, his suit ruined, his empire in ashes. Cleo had already cracked in interrogation, signing three separate affidavits against him in exchange for a plea deal that would still see her spend fifteen years in Danbury. His bank accounts were frozen. The dock bosses had put an open hit on his head.

He had only one card left to play.

*The child.*

If he had the child, he had leverage. He could force Elise to turn over the foreign bearer bonds stored in the Zurich vault—money the feds hadn't seized because Elise had kept them as her personal leverage. With those bonds, he could buy a passport and passage to South America.

He dialed the landline of his former estate in Westchester.

The line clicked.

"You're making a terrible mistake, Landon," Elise's voice said through the speaker. She didn't sound startled. She sounded as if she had been sitting by the phone waiting for the ring.

"I’m outside the gate, Elise," Landon rasped, his eyes burning as he stared through the wrought-iron entrance of the dark mansion. "You think Vance and his six rent-a-cops can hold off four men with automatic rifles? Send Vance out with the key to the Zurich deposit box, or I drive a stolen truck straight through the front doors."

"Vance isn't here, Landon," she replied calmly.

"Don't lie to me!"

"I'm not lying. I dismissed the security detail two hours ago. I'm sitting in the kitchen. Exactly where we were on October 14th."

Landon's hand tightened on the steering wheel. Suspicion warred with desperation. "Why would you be there alone?"

"Because this started in this house," Elise said softly. "And I know you. You can't leave the country knowing I'm alive, holding your child, sleeping in the house you paid for. Your pride won't allow it. Come inside, Landon. The side door is unlocked."

The line went dead.

Landon stared at the dark house. The sprawling stone mansion sat against the black backdrop of the woods, silent and imposing.

"Boss?" the driver asked, checking his sidearm. "It could be a federal trap. An HRT perimeter."

"Sterling wouldn't use her as bait while she's nine months pregnant," Landon snarled, racking the slide of his pistol. "She’s alone. She’s arrogant. She thinks because she outsmarted me with numbers, she can outsmart me with a gun."

He stepped out of the vehicle into the freezing October rain.

He walked up the gravel path, the gravel crunching under his boots just as it had for five years. He rounded the corner to the kitchen patio.

The side door stood slightly ajar. Warm amber light spilled across the flagstones.