The house was a gilded cage.
After the reception limped to a conclusion, Eliza's family drove her to a separate wing of the Malone estate. It was a sprawling, beautifully furnished mansionette, clearly intended for a new couple.
Julian was not there. He had sent a text. "Called back to base. Don't wait up." It was a lie, and they both knew it.
The house was silent, empty. The air was cold.
Her brother, Ricky, whistled as he looked around. "Well, look at you, Eliza. Hit the jackpot." The words were meant to be a joke, but they were laced with a bitter envy.
"Ricky, that's enough," her father, Earl, said, his voice stern.
Before they left, Brenda pulled Eliza aside, pressing a thin plastic card into her hand. A debit card.
"It's everything your father and I have," Brenda whispered, her eyes welling up. "A little over fifty thousand dollars. If they hurt you, you take this and you come home. You hear me? You come home."
Eliza closed her fingers around the card. The weight of it felt immense. The sum total of two people's lives of hard work, offered up without a second thought. The flicker of warmth she'd felt earlier intensified, a small, stubborn flame in the icy landscape of her soul.
She gave her mother a small, real smile. It felt stiff, unused. "I'll be okay, Mom. I can take care of myself."
After they left, she was truly alone. Her first instinct, Nyx's instinct, was to secure the perimeter. She walked through every room, her eyes scanning for threats. She found them quickly. Tiny, nearly invisible lenses embedded in the smoke detectors and light fixtures. The house was bugged. Every room, that is, except the master bedroom and bathroom. A quick scan confirmed they were clean-likely a professional courtesy, or a hard rule, to protect the privacy of a high-ranking officer like Julian. They were watching her, but they wouldn't cross the line into monitoring him.
Later that evening, a soft knock came at the door.
Eliza opened it to find a young woman holding a dinner tray. She looked to be in her late teens, with the same dark hair and aristocratic features as Julian.
"My mother sent this," the girl said, her tone clipped and hostile. She set the tray down on a nearby table with a clatter. "Don't get used to it."
This was Julian's younger sister, Meredith Malone. The family file Nyx had built in her head supplied the information. Or her identical twin, Genevieve. The file noted they were notorious for switching places, a detail filed away as a potential tactical advantage or complication.
Eliza looked at her, her gaze calm and analytical. She didn't respond to the hostility. Instead, she said, "Thank you, Genevieve."
The girl froze. Her head snapped up, her eyes wide with disbelief. "What did you say? How did you...?"
Eliza's voice was quiet, matter-of-fact. "The piercing in your left ear is a millimeter higher than the one in your right. A common mistake with a piercing gun. Your sister, Meredith, suffers from mild rhinitis, which causes faint discoloration on the sides of her nose. You're identical twins, but you're not identical."
The girl-Genevieve-was speechless. Her jaw hung slightly open. She and her sister had been switching places since they were children, a game that fooled teachers, friends, even their parents sometimes. Their mother had sent her, the sweeter-tempered twin, disguised as the notoriously difficult Meredith, to deliver a first dose of psychological warfare.
And this woman, this fat, stupid girl from a trailer park, had seen through it in less than ten seconds.
The hostility in Genevieve's face evaporated, replaced by a mixture of shock and awe.
"Who... who are you?" she breathed.
Eliza picked up a fork from the dinner tray. "Tell Meredith that the next time she wants to pull a prank, she should wash her signature perfume off her sister's wrists first."
Genevieve instinctively sniffed her own wrist. The faint scent of her sister's Dior perfume was there. Her face paled.
She watched Eliza calmly begin to eat her dinner, as if she hadn't just performed an impossible feat of observation.
This new sister-in-law was nothing like the rumors. Nothing at all.
Without another word, Genevieve turned and fled the room, her mind reeling.
For the first time since this nightmare began, someone in the Malone family was looking at Eliza Solis with something other than contempt.
They were looking at her with curiosity.
