She looked up at me, her bright blue eyes, so much like Harrison’s, wide with the sudden, innocent curiosity of a child trying to understand the world.
“Mommy,” June whispered, clutching a stuffed bear.
“A girl at school today said everyone has a daddy, so she asked what mine does,” she said.
“Where is mine?” she asked.
I paused, my hand resting gently on her cheek.
Five years ago, that question would have sent a spike of panic through my chest.
I would have felt the phantom pain of the courtroom, the echo of Jacob’s sneering voice.
Tonight, I felt nothing but a vast, deep reservoir of quiet, unbreakable strength.
The ghost had been thoroughly, entirely exorcised.
“Some people, June, are just stepping stones,” I said softly, brushing a lock of dark hair from her forehead.
“They are put in our path to teach us how to jump over the mud, so we don’t get stuck in the dark,” I explained.
I leaned down and kissed her forehead.
“You don’t have a father, my love,” I whispered, looking into the eyes of the sole heir to the Payne empire.
“You have a kingdom,” I told her.
“And you have a mother who will burn the entire world to ash before she ever lets anyone tell you that you are nothing,” I promised.
June smiled, a satisfied, sleepy expression, and closed her eyes.
I turned off the bedside lamp and walked out into the quiet hallway of the penthouse.
As I pulled the door shut, my encrypted, secure cell phone vibrated violently in my suit pocket.
I pulled it out.
It was a priority-one text message from Cole, my head of intelligence.
Target located in Geneva. The files on your mother’s disappearance were in the vault just like you suspected. Harrison lied.
I stared at the glowing screen in the dim hallway.
The protective daughter faded, and the ruthless CEO of Payne took the wheel.
A new, terrifying game was beginning in the shadows.
But this time, I wasn’t a pawn waiting to be sacrificed.
Alice Payne was the one moving the pieces.
