“What’s her name?” Ethan asked. Maria swallowed hard, her hand tightening around her daughter’s fingers. “

Ethan sat in the dark of his study, the glowing blue light of his computer screen illuminating the cold, stony contours of his face.

The pink heart-shaped candy still sat on the corner of his desk.

He felt a sickening, familiar sensation rise in his throat—the bitter taste of a man who had allowed himself to forget the fundamental rule of his life: Everyone has a price.

He pulled up the surveillance logs attached to Marcus Vance’s report.

According to the intelligence report, Victor Mercer had been trying for months to penetrate Colemark Properties' executive circle to obtain the confidential bidding numbers for the Memphis Waterfront Project. The deadline for the sealed bids was coming up in five days. If Mercer got those numbers, he could underbid Colemark by a fraction of a percent and steal the contract out from under Ethan's feet.

And how had Mercer gotten inside?

By targeting the house. By targeting the domestic staff. By placing a young, struggling mother with a cute, affectionate child inside Ethan's private sanctuary.

Ethan closed his eyes, his breath coming in slow, dangerous rattles.

Was the paint incident a setup? Was the little girl trained to draw him in, to break down his psychological defenses, to make him soft so the mother could search his private desk while he was out of the house?

Maya fly out of dark places...

The memory of the little girl's voice made Ethan's blood burn with a terrifying mix of rage and profound grief. They had used a three-year-old child as a trojan horse.

Ethan slammed his fist onto the heavy mahogany desk. The pink candy rattled against the wood.

He grabbed his phone and dialed Marcus Vance.

"Vance," Ethan said, his voice dropping into the terrifying, icy tone that made corporate executives tremble.

"I'm here, Mr. Cole," Vance replied instantly. "Did you review the file?"

"Yes," Ethan said, staring out the dark window toward the sleeping grounds. "How long has she been communicating with Mercer?"

"We tracked the first meeting back to two weeks ago," Vance reported. "Mercer’s operatives approached her at a grocery store near her apartment. They knew she had financial stress—her ex-husband left her with thousands in medical debt, and her daughter needs specialized speech therapy that isn't covered by basic insurance. Mercer offered her fifty thousand dollars for access to your private study."

"Did she give him anything yet?" Ethan asked, his knuckles white against the phone.

"Not yet, as far as our digital intercepts show," Vance answered. "Mercer instructed her to copy the bid files from your secure desktop drive onto an encrypted thumb drive this week. He promised her the remaining thirty-five thousand as soon as the drive was delivered."

Ethan stood up slowly, walking over to the window. In the distance, the guest house where the staff kept extra supplies was dark and quiet.

"Mr. Cole?" Vance asked after a long pause. "Do you want me to call the police? We have enough evidence of corporate espionage to have her arrested immediately."

"No," Ethan said coldly.

"No?" Vance sounded surprised. "Sir, she's in your house."

"If we arrest her now, Mercer will know we caught on," Ethan said, a ruthless, brilliant strategy formulating in his mind. "Mercer thinks he bought my weakness. He thinks he bought a helpless mother who broke through my defenses."

Ethan looked down at the pink candy on his desk.

"We are going to let her take the file," Ethan commanded. "I am going to feed Victor Mercer a fake set of bidding figures that will force his company to over-leverage three hundred million dollars in non-refundable bank loans. By the time he realizes the bid numbers are a trap, Horizon Development will be bankrupt."

"And the mother?" Vance asked.