Across the city, in a marble-floored bathroom, Cleora Goff's phone buzzed.
She was getting a pedicure. She picked up the phone with her free hand. The screen lit up with Pringle's message.
She brought a man home. Bloody. Secret.
Cleora smiled. It was a slow, venomous expression. She waved the nail technician away.
She dialed a number.
"Auntie Felicity," Cleora said. Her voice pitched up an octave, sounding sweet and concerned. "I heard the most terrible rumors... Ivy might be in trouble. With bad men."
In the basement of a warehouse in the Meatpacking District, Deondre Pittman sat in a leather chair. He held a scalpel, turning it over and over in his fingers.
Quincy, his second-in-command, stood by the door.
"Pierce failed," Quincy said. "He said he encountered... a bearer of the Serpent's Eye."
Deondre stopped spinning the scalpel. The blade nicked his thumb. A drop of blood welled up.
He had only given that coin to one person. A child who had saved his life five years ago. He had lost track of her when her father went into hiding.
"Find out who saved the Lancaster heir," Deondre said softly.
Back at the Goff estate, the sun was rising.
Ivy was asleep at her desk. Her head rested on an open anatomy textbook. Her hand still loosely gripped a pair of surgical scissors.
Braylon woke up.
He felt stiff. His chest burned. He looked down. His torso was wrapped in professional-grade bandages.
He looked around the room. It was a paradox. Pink curtains, stuffed animals, and romance novels on the shelves. But on the walls were detailed diagrams of the human circulatory system.
He sat up. The bed frame creaked.
Ivy moved instantly.
She didn't wake up groggy. She woke up attacking. She spun in the chair and threw the scissors.
They thudded into the wooden headboard, an inch from Braylon's ear.
Braylon looked at the vibrating metal. He raised an eyebrow.
"Good morning to you too," he said.
Ivy rubbed her eyes behind her glasses. She looked annoyed that he was awake.
"You are alive," she said. "Unfortunately."
Braylon smirked. The pain in his side was sharp, but his charm was a reflex.
"You saved my life. How can I repay you? My body?"
Ivy stood up. She walked to the bed and looked down at him. Her expression was clinical.
"Money. Lots of it. And silence."
Braylon paused. He wasn't used to women looking at him like he was a specimen in a jar.
The doorbell rang downstairs. It was loud.
Then came Mrs. Pringle's voice, shrill and projecting.
"Oh, Mrs. Miles! What a surprise!"
Ivy stiffened. She walked to the window and peered through the blinds.
Three luxury sedans were in the driveway. Jared Miles, her fiancé, was there with his parents. And Cleora, clutching Felicity Miles's arm like a dutiful niece.
Ivy turned back to Braylon.
"Stay here. Don't make a sound."
Braylon heard the commotion downstairs. He put the pieces together.
"Trouble with the in-laws?" he asked.
Ivy ignored him. She stripped off her bloody uniform shirt. She had a tank top on underneath. She pulled on a oversized, gray hoodie. It swallowed her figure completely.
She opened the door.
Braylon watched her leave. The playful look in his eyes vanished. He reached for the cheap flip phone Ivy had left on the nightstand.
He dialed a number from memory.
"Douglas," he said. "Locate me."
