Cassandra moved down the corridor, the rhythmic click of her heels on the marble echoing like a countdown.
She didn't walk like a woman marching toward an execution. She walked like a woman approaching a feast.
Behind her, she could hear the heavy, uneven footsteps of her husband and Arthur. She didn't need to look back to know what they looked like... Reginald, stiff with bruised pride; Arthur, wiping sweat from his upper lip, reeking of anxiety.
They were afraid.
But Cassandra felt a shiver of a very different kind.
It started at the base of her spine and curled upward, a heat that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room.
Jonathan.
She had met him only a few times... brief, formal exchanges at the annual summits or across crowded gala floors... but he had always left a mark. He was the shadow that walked beside Richard Blackwood.
She remembered the way he moved. Efficient. Silent. Lethal.
