d14.The first thing I heard after my face hit the wedding cake was not screaming. It was the sharp, metallic click of a camera shutter.

*Crack!*

Claire didn't shoot to kill. The round from her small caliber pistol slammed directly into Richard’s right knee.

He let out a strangled, pathetic howl, dropping his weapon and collapsing into the dirt among the shattered clay pots. The suppressed pistol clattered across the flagstones, sliding straight toward my bare feet.

I didn't hesitate. I kicked the gun far into the darkness beneath the rusted heating pipes, where it vanished into the murky drainage ditch.

"Elena! Please!" Richard groaned, clutching his shattered kneecap, blood soaking through the fabric of his trousers. "They’ll kill me! You don't understand what Walter does to people who fail him!"

"You should have thought about that before you put a tracker around my neck," I said, my voice dead and cold.

Claire grabbed my arm, her grip iron-hard despite her injured shoulder. "We have to move. When Walter’s men realize that necklace is headed for Pennsylvania on a Norfolk Southern freight line, they’re going to saturate this entire perimeter. Come on!"

We slipped through the rear breach in the greenhouse wall, tumbling down a steep gravel embankment beside the rail spur. The cool night wind off the river whipped my torn satin dress against my legs, chilling the sweat and sticky sugar on my skin.

Across the dark access road, a nondescript, beat-up gray sedan sat idling beneath the shadow of a decommissioned salt shed.

The headlights flashed twice.

"That's our extraction," Claire panted, dragging me toward the vehicle.

The driver’s side door swung open. A young man stepped out into the weak glare of the streetlamp, his hands raised in surrender.

It was Leo Vance.

I stopped dead in my tracks, my muscles locking up, preparing to bolt back toward the rail yard. "Claire, run! It’s Adrian’s brother!"

"Wait! Elena, don't!" Leo pleaded, his voice breaking. He took two hurried steps forward, dropping a heavy set of keys onto the gravel hood of the sedan. "I didn't lock the kitchen doors because I wanted to trap you! Adrian had a guard standing behind me with a taser to my spine! Look at my neck!"

He pulled down the collar of his tailored tuxedo shirt. Across the base of his neck were two vicious, blistered burn marks from high-voltage contact pins.

"He threatened to do to me what they did to Julianna," Leo said, his eyes wild with terror and shame. "I couldn't stand there and watch them do it to you too. I slipped out through the loading dock while Walter was dealing with the decoy."

"Where is the decoy?" Claire demanded, her gun still drawn, leveled steadily at Leo’s chest. "What did they do to Julianna?"

Leo swallowed hard, his throat bobbing. "Walter’s security took her to the penthouse at the Vance Tower. They think she’s Elena. They hit her with a heavy sedative before they realized she wasn't speaking. Walter has his private physician up there right now, preparing an adrenaline reversal to wake her up so she can sign the midnight board documents."

I looked at the dashboard clock inside the sedan: **9:42 PM.**

Two hours and eighteen minutes remained until midnight.

"Why didn't they realize it wasn't me?" I asked, bewildered. "Julianna and I don't look identical."

"You don't need to look identical when your face is caked in blood and sugar, and you're wearing twenty yards of identical silk and lace," Leo said grimly. "Besides, Walter doesn't care what the bride looks like on the signing document. The notary is on his payroll. He just needs a living woman with the legal name *Elena Davis Vance* to sign the certificate before the midnight board convene, or the trust defaults."

"Wait," I said, a cold spike of realization piercing my mind. "If they think Julianna is me, what happens the moment they wipe the frosting off her face and realize who she actually is?"

Leo looked down at the gravel, his silence deafening.

"They’ll kill her," Claire whispered, the color draining completely from her face. "Walter will kill her for good this time. And then he’ll spend the rest of the night hunting Elena to finish the job."

"Not if we hit them first," I said.

Both Claire and Leo turned to stare at me.

Standing on the dark riverbank, barefoot, covered in grime, blood, and wedding cake, I felt the last shred of my former, timid self disintegrate. For six months, Adrian had manipulated me, isolated me, made me doubt my own sanity, and treated me like a decorative ornament to be bought and sold.

I wasn't running anymore.

"Leo," I said, stepping up to the boy and looking directly into his terrified eyes. "Do you have your keycard to the executive elevators at Vance Tower?"

Leo hesitated for a fraction of a second. Then, his jaw tightened, and he pulled a heavy titanium security pass from his vest pocket.

"I have the keycard," Leo said. "And I know the override codes for the security feeds."