Married to My Father's Killer

Chapter 5

I didn't let myself shake until I was outside.

Damon's words followed me through the revolving doors and onto the street — which one of us finds out yours first — and I walked three full blocks before I trusted my hands enough to pull out my phone.

Julian answered on the first ring.

"It's done," I said. "I signed."

A long breath on the other end, almost relief. "Good girl. And your mother?"

"Being moved tonight. Private wing." My voice caught on it. "Julian, they're animals. The cousin already threatened me. There's a woman, Selena, who's promising to dig up my whole life. If they find out who I really am—"

"They won't." His voice was steady, sure, the way it had been at every funeral and every eviction. "You're Lucia Hart. Plain, forgettable, no past worth chasing. That's the whole point, child. They'll never look twice at a nobody." A pause. "Remember why you're there. Three years your father has been waiting for someone to clear his name. You're the only one close enough to do it. Don't let their money soften you."

"It won't."

"Then go to that dinner and smile at the men who buried him," he said gently, "and let none of them see the knife."

I closed my eyes. "I won't, Julian. I promise."

"That's my Lucia."

I hung up and felt steadier, the way I always did after talking to him. He was the last good thing in my life. The only one who'd never lied to me.

The Sinclair estate sat above the river like something out of a different century — wrought-iron gates, a drive lined with bare trees, a house lit up gold against the dark. The car rolled to a stop and a uniformed man opened my door before I could touch it.

I'd grown up comfortable. I'd never grown up like this.

This was the kind of wealth my father had built things for and never owned. The kind that had crushed him without breaking a sweat.

Adrian was waiting at the top of the steps.

He'd changed into black, severe and perfect, and his gaze moved over me once — the borrowed silver dress, the hair I'd pinned up with shaking fingers — and I braced for the sneer.

"You'll do," he said.

It shouldn't have stung. It did anyway.

"Try to contain your enthusiasm," I muttered.

The corner of his mouth twitched. He offered his arm, and I understood it wasn't a courtesy; it was a cue. The performance started at this door.

I took it. His forearm was warm and solid under my palm, and I hated that I noticed.

"Three rules," he said quietly as we walked. "Don't contradict my father in front of others. Don't drink more than one glass. And whatever you hear at that table, keep your face still." His eyes cut to mine. "Can you do that?"

"I've been keeping my face still my whole life."

Something flickered across his expression — not quite surprise, not quite respect. Then the doors opened, and we stepped into the warmth and light and quiet menace of the Sinclair home.

A girl reached us first.

She couldn't have been more than twenty-two, with Adrian's dark hair and none of his cold, her whole face open and bright. She caught my free hand in both of hers before anyone could stop her.

"You're Lucia! Oh, finally, a face that isn't terrifying." She beamed. "I'm Cora. Adrian's sister. Ignore everything everyone says tonight, especially him—" a nod at her brother "—he's been impossible since birth."

I laughed before I could help it. It surprised both of us.

"There it is," Cora said, delighted. "He didn't tell me you were normal. Come, sit by me, I'll protect you."

And just like that, something cracked in the wall I'd built. I'd come here ready to hate every soul under this roof. I hadn't planned on Cora — on a girl with kind eyes who had nothing to do with what her family had done, who was already deciding to like me.

Don't, I told myself. They're all part of it. Every last one.

But it was harder than Julian had made it sound.

The dining room was vast, the table long enough to seat twenty, set for far fewer. And at the head of it sat a man who needed no introduction.

Gregory Sinclair.

Patriarch. Founder. The name behind the empire that had risen from my father's ruin. He was older than I'd imagined, silver-haired and broad, with Adrian's same grey eyes gone hard with age. The room seemed to arrange itself around him without being asked.

"So," he said, and the table fell quiet. "This is the girl my son married in secret, with no contract I was shown and no name I recognize." His gaze settled on me, flat and assessing. "Come closer, Miss Hart. Let me look at the woman who'll carry the Sinclair name."

Adrian's hand pressed against my back — go — and I crossed the room on legs that felt like water, and stopped before the man I had spent three years learning to hate.

I made my face still. I made it perfect.

Gregory looked at me.

And then something shifted in his face — the assessment draining away, replaced by something slower, stranger. His brows drew together. He leaned forward in his chair, studying me with a sudden, fixed intensity that turned my blood to ice.

"Have we met?" he said softly.

"No, sir," I managed. "I'd remember."

But he didn't look away. If anything, his stare deepened, searching my face like a man chasing a memory just out of reach — the auburn hair, the green eyes, the line of my jaw.

"Strange," he murmured, almost to himself. "You remind me so much of someone I used to know."

The whole table watched.

And across from me, slow and silent, Damon Sinclair began to smile.