The silence in the penthouse was no longer cold; it was corrosive. Demetri had retreated to his fortress within the fortress—the inner sanctum of his office—and hadn't emerged for twenty-four hours. The fabricated photograph of Nora and Croft lay on the console like a toxic spill, its poison seeping into the very air. Nora’s attempts to reason with him had been met with a closed door and a silence more devastating than any accusation.
Sasha, meanwhile, had become a ghost. She spent hours locked in her room with her tablet, the blue glow of the screen reflecting in her determined eyes. She was a hunter on a digital trail, her artist’s mind deconstructing Croft’s life, looking for the flaw in the canvas, the single brushstroke out of place.
Nora felt the threads of their hard-won family un
