Before that, the syndicate had called me Raven.

I had not been their assassin. I had been their architect—the woman who created offshore routes, encrypted ledgers, and contingency files that powerful men prayed would never see daylight. I escaped when my husband helped me trade evidence for sealed immunity. I had promised never to go back.

At 1:13 a.m., I lifted a hidden panel beneath the pantry floor and took out a black phone that still had a charge.

I made three calls.

The first went to a syndicate accountant who owed me his life.

The second went to a federal prosecutor who owed me her career.

The third went to the man Conrad Vale had ordered killed fifteen years before.

When I finished, dawn had begun touching the windows.

I poured fresh coffee and whispered into the brightening empty room, “You chose the wrong daughter.”…

PART 2

By eight o’clock, Conrad Vale’s cathedral looked less like a church and more like a coronation hall. Five hundred guests arrived: senators, judges, celebrities, executives, and reporters.