Chapter 3

The red light on the voice recorder blinked steadily, indicating a full charge.

Nora sat cross-legged on the center of the enormous four-poster bed. The house was silent. It was 2:00 AM. The Beaumonts were asleep, probably still reeling from the evening's drama.

She reached out and pressed the play button.

Static. Then, voices. Clear as day.

"Make sure her meals are served late," Olivia's voice said, crisp and commanding. "And only the leftovers. She needs to understand she's not one of us."

"Of course, Miss Olivia," Reginald's voice replied, dripping with deference. "And the room service?"

"Skip it. If she wants clean towels, she can ask the laundry maid herself. I want her to feel like a servant, not a sister."

Nora listened to the first segment of the recording. It was a blueprint of humiliation. Every detail of how to make her life miserable was laid out in cold, precise language.

She felt a chill, but it wasn't from fear. It was recognition. She had heard this kind of plotting before-in the palaces of Florence, in the courts of the Renaissance. The players changed, but the game remained the same.

She paused the playback. There was more on the device-she had glimpsed additional timestamped files in the recorder's memory. Fresh ammunition. She would save it for when she needed it most.

She saved the first audio file to her phone for immediate use, then placed the recorder back in the drawer. It was an ace up her sleeve, but not the one she would play tomorrow.

She climbed off the bed and began to walk the perimeter of the room. She tested the windows. She checked the locks. It was an old habit, born from a time when assassins walked through bedroom doors.

She paused by the door leading to the hallway. She heard it.

Click.

The handle was turning.

Nora's body reacted before her mind could process the threat. Her muscles coiled. Her breathing shallowed. She wasn't a scared girl; she was a predator sensing an intruder.

The door swung open slowly. A tall silhouette filled the frame, backlit by the dim hallway light.

Nora didn't scream. She moved.

She grabbed the heavy brass lamp from the nightstand. She didn't swing it at his head-that was for brutes. As he took a definitive step onto the Persian rug, she thrust the lamp forward, not as a club, but as a barrier, hooking its curved base around his ankle and pulling sharply.

The man gasped, his balance gone, and hit the floor hard. Before he could recover, Nora was on him instantly, her knee pressing into his spine, her hand twisting his arm behind his back.

"Who sent you?" she hissed into his ear, her voice low and deadly. "Connor Sterling?"

"Wait!" the man choked out. "I'm not Connor! I'm Graham! Graham Vance!"

Nora increased the pressure on his arm. "Why are you in my room, Vance?"

"I was looking for the bathroom!" Graham groaned, his face pressed into the carpet. "I had too much to drink at the Sterling party next door. I took a wrong turn, I swear to God!"

Nora's grip on his arm tightened for a fraction of a second. Sterling. The source of her current predicament. So they were neighbors. She remembered the rumors. The Sterlings owned the estate next door. They were having a party tonight.

She reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. She flipped it open. The driver's license read: Graham Vance.

She let go of his arm and stood up, stepping back into a defensive stance. "This is a private bedroom, Mr. Vance."

Graham scrambled to his feet, rubbing his shoulder. He stared at her, his eyes wide with shock. "You... you just took me down like a ragdoll. What the hell are they feeding you in Montana?"

Nora didn't answer. Her eyes flicked to the corner of the ceiling. A small, black dome camera. The estate's security system.

She walked over to the antique desk and opened her laptop. She had spent the last week studying the estate's network architecture. It was surprisingly vulnerable.

Graham watched in disbelief as her fingers flew across the keyboard. "What are you doing?"

"Erasing a mistake," she said simply.

She accessed the estate's security log, a system she'd found surprisingly lax during her initial reconnaissance. She didn't have the skill to delete the footage, but she didn't need it. She found the entry for the camera in her hallway and, exploiting a loophole in the administrative settings, flagged the time code of Graham's entry as 'System Maintenance - Signal Loss'. The footage was still there, buried in the archives, but any routine check would show nothing more than a scheduled glitch.

She closed the laptop and looked at Graham, who was standing there with his mouth open.

"Nothing happened tonight," Nora said, her tone leaving no room for argument. "You found the bathroom and left. Go home, Mr. Vance."

Graham nodded slowly, still dazed. He backed out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

He walked back to the Sterling estate in a trance. He found Julian Sterling standing in the study, staring at a tablet.

"Graham," Julian said, not looking up. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"I think I have," Graham muttered, sinking into a chair. "I wandered into the Beaumont house. Went into the wrong room. That girl... the one from Montana..."

Julian's head snapped up. "Eleanora?"

"She attacked me, Julian," Graham said, rubbing his arm. "She was like a ninja. Pinned me to the floor in two seconds. Then she accessed the security system and covered her tracks."

Julian stared at him, his eyes narrowing. He looked down at his tablet. He had been watching the Beaumont security feed-his little secret for keeping tabs on his nephew, Connor. He had seen Graham walk into the room. He had seen the brief struggle. And then, the screen had displayed a 'Signal Lost' message.

A slow, genuine smile spread across Julian's face. "Interesting."

"Interesting? She's terrifying!" Graham exclaimed.

Julian set the tablet down. He had assumed Eleanora Beaumont was a simple, broken girl. A victim. But a victim doesn't fight like that. A victim doesn't cover her tracks with that kind of efficiency.

"Tell no one about this," Julian ordered, his voice suddenly cold.

Graham nodded vigorously. "Believe me, I want to forget it."

Julian turned back to the dark screen on his tablet. He didn't want to forget. He wanted to know everything.

Back in the master bedroom, Nora double-checked the lock. The old mechanism must have slipped when she'd closed it earlier-she made a mental note to have it repaired. She turned the bolt firmly until she heard it click into place, then tested it twice to be certain.

She walked to the dressing table and opened the bottom drawer. The voice recorder was still there, right where she'd left it. She hadn't finished listening to all of its contents earlier-she had only played the first segment before Graham's intrusion interrupted her.

She settled back onto the bed, drew her knees up, and pressed play again. It was time to hear what else Olivia and Reginald had been plotting.