Gabriel popped the gold locket open. It didn’t hold a faded wedding photo. Inside sat a jagged, broken piece of a silver-and-onyx brooch—the exact missing half of the heirloom currently pinned to Aunt Madeleine’s gown.
Beneath the metal was a microscopic, blood-stained scrap of paper: *She cut the brakes. The blue room is her basement. Play along.*
Gabriel’s blood ran to ice. Madeleine had orchestrated the crash to retain control of the Hale empire, keeping his family caged in his own ancestral home. Now, half a dozen heavily armed security guards loyal to his aunt were closing in. If Gabriel tried to be a hero right now, Nora and Rose would be dead before they reached the lobby.
He had to give Madeleine exactly what she wanted to see.
Gabriel snapped the locket shut. The shock vanished from his eyes, replaced by a mask of pure, aristocratic revulsion.
“You sick, opportunistic fraud,” Gabriel sneered, his voice echoing off the ballroom’s elegant carved walls.
Nora caught the terrifyingly cold deadness in his eyes—and understood instantly. She threw herself onto the gleaming white marble, her deep burgundy dress pooling around her, and locked her arms around his leg. “Gabriel, please! Believe me!” she sobbed, playing the desperate lunatic flawlessly.
With a ruthless, violent jerk, Gabriel threw her off. Nora lost her balance, tumbling hard onto the cold floor. The sweeping semi-circle of black-clad elite gasped, their faces twisting in collective disgust at the “impostor.”
Gabriel coldly adjusted his jacket. Without a single backward glance, he strode decisively into the parting sea of dark suits, leaving Nora weeping under the chandeliers.
Aunt Madeleine smirked in triumph. “Take them outside and dispose of them,” she whispered to her men.
But her smile faded when the ballroom doors suddenly locked with a heavy magnetic *clack*.
She hadn’t noticed Gabriel brushing past the FBI Director by the champagne tower. She hadn’t seen him slip the broken brooch into the agent’s pocket, nor heard his whispered, lethal command:
*“Arrest my aunt. My wife is the bait.”*