He abandoned his wife at O’Hare to fly first class with his childhood ex, completely unaware she was boarding a flight to a new country without him.

The private showroom in Mayfair smelled of expensive beeswax, antique timber, and centuries of stolen wealth.

I stood in front of a 17th-century Dutch still life, holding a small magnifying lamp, while Julian stood near the gallery owner discussing the provenance of three paintings from an estate sale. The encounter with the black Audi two days earlier had dissolved into the London traffic after Julian took a series of aggressive detours through Westminster, but the phantom weight of being hunted lingered in the air like ozone before a lightning strike.

My phone vibrated against the polished walnut table.

An unknown international number.

I hesitated, then swiped to accept, pressing the receiver to my ear without speaking.

"Claire."

The sound of his voice sent an involuntary shiver down my spine. It was rough, frayed at the edges, devoid of the cold, aristocratic polish Adrian usually presented to the world. He sounded like a man who hadn't slept in a week, his breath shallow, raspy.

"You shouldn't have called this number, Adrian," I said, keeping my tone so cold it felt like handling dry ice.

"Don't hang up," he rasped, almost pleading. "Please. Claire, just five minutes. That’s all I’m asking. Five goddamn minutes."

"You had five years," I said, looking at my reflection in the dark varnish of the Dutch painting. "And you spent every second of it checking your watch to see when Sophia needed you next."

"Sophia is gone," he snapped, a venomous edge cutting through his exhaustion. "I threw her out. I terminated the lease on her apartment. I shut down the foundation we funded for her father. She has nothing. She means nothing."

I let out a soft, bitter laugh that sounded cruel even to my own ears. "You think this is about Sophia, Adrian? You think I left because I was jealous of a pathetic, manipulative girl?"

"Then why did you leave?!" he yelled, losing his composure. Through the speaker, I could hear the background roar of high-altitude jet engines. He was on a plane. "I gave you everything! You had an empire at your feet! No one touched you, no one dared to even look at you sideways!"

"You put me in a gilded coffin, Adrian," I said, my voice dropping to a deadly, quiet whisper. "You left me at an airport gate while you flew off to hold her hand. You showed your enemies, your men, and the entire city of Chicago that I was disposable. And the moment a woman becomes disposable in your world, she becomes a target."

The silence on the other end of the line was suffocating.

"What happened?" Adrian asked, his voice suddenly dropping into the lethal, terrifying register of the Moretti capo. "Claire. Who touched you?"

"Nobody touched me."

"Who came after you?" he demanded, his breathing turning ragged. "I have two men in London. They told me you spotted them, but they said nothing happened."

"Your men are blind," I said. "And you are too late. Sign the papers, Adrian. Julian Thorne will have them delivered to your legal team by noon tomorrow."

"I am not signing shit," Adrian hissed, his voice trembling with an emotion I had never heard from him before: raw, unadulterated terror. "Look outside the gallery, Claire."

My blood ran cold.

I slowly turned toward the grand arched windows of the Mayfair gallery.

Across the rain-slicked street, parked directly beneath the yellow glow of a Victorian gas lamp, sat a long, armored black Range Rover bearing the private diplomatic plates of the Moretti shipping consortium.

The rear door clicked open.

Adrian Moretti stepped out into the London rain.

He wore no coat, only a bespoke black three-piece suit that clung to his broad shoulders. He held no umbrella. Rain soaked into his dark hair, plastering it against his temples, running down the harsh, aristocratic lines of his pale, hollow face. The dark circles under his eyes made him look like a ghost risen from an open grave.

He was holding a phone to his ear, staring straight through the glass at me.

"I told you," Adrian whispered through the receiver, his eyes locked on mine with an intensity that burned across the pavement. "You don't get to leave me, Claire. I would tear this entire city apart brick by brick before I let you walk away."

Before I could speak, the peaceful atmosphere of Mayfair shattered.

From the intersecting alleyway thirty yards behind Adrian, a gray utility van screeched into the street, tires smoking against the wet asphalt. The side door slid back with a violent metallic clatter.

Three men in ballistic masks leaned out, raising automatic submachine guns.