Charlène didn't want to pick up the call. In her world, a 3:00 AM phone call never brought good news.
"Speak," she whispered.
"The De Rossi vault," the voice on the other end crackled. It was her handler, a man who traded in secrets and misery. "How long will it take for you to get me the ledger and a prototype inside? Steal them. And while you're inside the estate, you have a secondary objective. Terminate the heir. Kill Lucien De Rossi."
Charlène's heart stopped. "I… I will. I need time. That's a suicide mission. Their security is—"
"I don't care about the security, Charlène. And neither does the debt you owe," he snarled. "If you fail, the shipments of Leo's medication stop. The technicians for his machines won't show up tomorrow. The devil knows what will happen to your brother then. He won't live to see the sunrise."
The line went dead.
Her handler had her in a vice. It wasn't just the cost of the vials—though at fifty thousand dollars a month, they were bleeding her dry. It was the access. The serum Leo needed was a restricted prototype, owned by a pharmaceutical titan the handler had on a leash.
Without the handler, the vials stopped shipping. Without the vials, Leo's nervous system would shut down in forty-eight hours.
She was rich in stolen cash, but a pauper in power.
Charlène sank to her knees, the phone slipping from her hand onto the rug. She felt like she was suffocating. She had spent years killing monsters to keep her brother alive, but Lucien De Rossi… he was something else. The rumors in the underworld weren't just about his power; they were about his nature. They said he was a demon in a designer suit. How do you kill something that isn't human?
"How long, Charlène?"
The weak, raspy voice made her flinch. She turned, her eyes blurring with tears.
Leo was standing in the doorway, his thin frame silhouetted by the dim hallway light. He was pale, his skin almost translucent, holding onto the doorframe so hard his knuckles were white. He looked like a ghost already.
"Leo, you should be in bed," Charlène choked out, wiping her eyes frantically.
"How long are you going to… to do this?" he stammered, his voice trembling with effort. "Stealing. Killing. Putting your life in the fire for me? You're better than this. You're a good person, Char. You don't have to… to be a criminal for a dead man walking."
"Don't say that," Charlène snapped, standing up. "You're not dying. I won't let you."
"It's inevitable," Leo whispered, a pained smile touching his lips. "Stop… before the fire consumes you too."
Suddenly, his face contorted. He clutched his stomach, a guttural scream of agony tearing from his throat.
"Leo!"
He collapsed before she could reach him. Charlène dived across the floor, catching his head before it hit the hardwood. He was shaking, his eyes rolling back as the machines in the next room began to wail an alarm.
"Leo! Wake up! Look at me!" she screamed, pulling his limp body against her chest. She rocked him, tears falling onto his cold forehead. "Please, don't leave me. Not yet."
She held him until the seizure passed.
Her gaze drifted to the monitors. The medicine was almost gone. She had the money to pay for more, but he wouldn't take her money—he wanted Lucien De Rossi's head.
Charlène wiped her eyes, her gaze hardening toward the hallway. She couldn't kill Lucien tonight; she didn't even know where he slept yet. But she could steal the Star of Paris.
If she had a diamond that famous, a jewel the whole world was watching, she could use it as a trade. She could bypass the Broker and find a new supplier on the dark web who valued the stone more than they valued her handler's loyalty.
It was a desperate, dangerous gamble. But looking at Leo's pale face, she knew she didn't have a choice.
She had already taken Leo to his room.
Charlène walked into her bedroom and pulled open the bottom drawer of her vanity. There it was—her mask.
It was a jeweled veil that draped over the bridge of her nose and fell softly to her chin.
She gripped her key, walking toward the door. She slid it into the lock and closed her eyes, picturing the high-security vault of the Lumière Gallery in the heart of Paris.
Twist. Sigh.
She stepped through.
Charlène was standing inside the main display room. The gallery was dark, save for a single piercing spotlight hitting the pedestal in the center.
There it was. The Star of Paris. Not just a diamond, but a 100-carat teardrop of pure light, rumored to have been stolen from a royal crown centuries ago.
She didn't worry about the floor sensors; her key had dropped her right next to the glass.
Charlène pulled out a small high-frequency glass cutter. Her hands were steady, even as her heart screamed for Leo. One cut. One grab. One escape.
The glass gave way.
She reached in, fingers inches from the cold fire of the diamond.
A voice came from behind her.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?"