Chapter 4 - THE WOLF IN THE HOUSE
By sunrise, the Kelly estate looked less like a mansion than a military checkpoint.
Every employee was confined to the property.
Phones were collected.
Security footage was copied.
Diamond trusted nobody.
Except, against every instinct that had kept him alive, Caprice.
She sat across from him in the library wearing one of Mrs. Higgins's sweaters because blood from the dead guard had splattered her uniform.
She had not spoken for twenty minutes.
"You can leave," Diamond said.
Caprice looked up.
"You just locked everyone in."
"I'll make an exception."
"Why?"
"Because someone tried to kill me."
"That's generally when people want witnesses nearby."
"Because they may try again."
Caprice studied him.
"You think sending me outside makes me safer?"
Diamond had no answer.
Her connection to Thomas meant she was already involved.
He hated that.
He hated more that he cared.
Levi entered carrying a laptop.
"We found something."
Security footage showed the guard entering Diamond's private garage six hours before the attack.
Then another figure appeared.
Mrs. Higgins.
Caprice stood.
"No."
Diamond watched the screen.
The housekeeper approached the guard.
They spoke.
She handed him something.
Diamond's face hardened.
"Bring her."
Mrs. Higgins arrived trembling.
Levi placed the laptop before her.
"What did you give him?"
"His paycheck."
"At midnight?"
"He asked for an advance."
Diamond's voice was quiet.
"Who hired Caprice?"
Mrs. Higgins looked at Caprice.
"Northbridge."
"Who recommended Northbridge?"
Silence.
Diamond knew.
Mrs. Higgins began crying.
"My son."
Levi stiffened.
"What son?"
"Peter."
She covered her face.
"He has gambling debts. Men came to his apartment. They said they'd kill him."
Diamond's jaw tightened.
"They made you hire Caprice?"
"Yes."
"Why her?"
"I don't know."
Mrs. Higgins looked at Caprice.
"They gave me her application specifically."
Caprice went still.
Diamond understood.
She had never accidentally entered his world.
Someone had selected her.
Someone knew she was Thomas Thompson's daughter.
But whoever had arranged it had not expected Diamond to care about her.
That might be the first mistake the wolf had made.
Levi's phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed.
"What?"
Everyone looked toward him.
Levi slowly lowered the phone.
"Victor Hale was found dead this morning."
Diamond's eyes narrowed.
"Where?"
"His house."
"How?"
"Shot."
Levi hesitated.
"Two years ago."
Caprice frowned.
"What?"
Levi turned the laptop around.
"The man we've believed was Victor Hale for the last two years wasn't Hale."
Diamond felt the room tilt.
The criminal war he had been fighting had been built around a ghost.
"Then who have I been negotiating with?"
"We don't know."
Caprice whispered, "Someone wanted you looking outward."
Diamond remembered Thomas's warning.
The wolf is already inside.
He turned toward Levi.
For the first time in twenty years, suspicion passed between them.
Levi saw it.
His face hardened.
"If you think it's me, say it."
"I think it's everyone."
"Good."
Levi removed his pistol and placed it on the desk.
"Then investigate me first."
Diamond stared at his oldest friend.
Caprice watched both men.
Then she noticed something.
The photograph above the fireplace.
Diamond's father stood with several younger men.
One was Levi.
Another was Thomas.
And another—
Caprice moved closer.
"Who is that?"
Diamond followed her finger.
A younger man stood at the edge of the photograph.
Thin.
Dark-haired.
Smiling.
Diamond's face went blank.
"My brother."
Caprice turned.
"You have a brother?"
"Had."
"What happened?"
"He died fifteen years ago."
Caprice stared at the photograph.
"No."
Diamond's eyes narrowed.
"What?"
"I've seen him."
The room became silent.
Caprice walked toward her purse and retrieved her phone.
She searched through photographs.
Then stopped.
The picture showed Caprice's mother at the memory-care facility.
Behind her, reflected faintly in a glass door, stood an older version of the man in Diamond's photograph.
Diamond's blood turned cold.
"Where was this taken?"
"Three months ago."
Levi stared.
"That's impossible."
Diamond did not blink.
His younger brother, Damian Kelly, had supposedly died in a warehouse fire when he was nineteen.
Diamond had identified what remained of the body himself.
Or believed he had.
Caprice looked at Diamond.
"Why would your dead brother be visiting my mother?"
Diamond stared at the image.
Suddenly, the past two years rearranged themselves.
The sniper.
Thomas.
The false Victor Hale.
Caprice's debt.
The infiltration of the estate.
This had never been a war between rival organizations.
May you like
It had been a family war.
And the dead had just come home.
