My sister stole my custom wedding gown and walked down the aisle in it—so I let nearly 300 guests watch the security footage that revealed who helped her.

Rounds pinged off the armored fuselage of the helicopter with the sound of high-speed sledgehammers. Julian didn't dive for cover; instead, he threw himself across the open threshold of the transport, knocking me flat onto the ribbed aluminum floor just as a high-velocity slug shattered the plexiglass window where my head had been resting.

He took a round to his upper left shoulder. A harsh grunt tore from his throat, his dark wool coat immediately saturating with hot, crimson blood.

"Get us off the roof!" Eleanor barked into her headset as she dropped to one knee at the open door, firing controlled, brutal three-round bursts that drove the approaching Vance mercenaries back into the stairwell enclosure.

The transport lifted violently, banking hard to the left as the rotors bit into the gale. The Parisian skyline—a sprawling carpet of golden lights veiled in gray mist—dropped away beneath us. Below, the rooftop receded, leaving behind only the flashing beacons of police cruisers finally converging on the Palais de la Bourse far too late.

The cabin door slammed shut and sealed with a pneumatic hiss. Inside, the only illumination came from the dull red tactical emergency lights.

Julian lay against the bulkhead, his breath coming in shallow, ragged gasps. Blood seeped through his fingers as he pressed his right hand against his wounded shoulder. Across from him sat David Vance, bound and unconscious, his expensive suit ruined, his breathing wet and labored.

I knelt beside Julian, torn between an overwhelming fury and an instinctual terror for his life. "Hold still," I commanded, tearing the sleeve of my inner shirt to create a makeshift compression bandage.

"Don't waste the silk on him," Eleanor said, removing her ballistic helmet and shaking out her silver-streaked dark hair. The burn scar across her neck was jagged, pink, and terrifyingly real. "The round passed through clean. His collarbone is intact. He will survive long enough to answer for his family's crimes."

"You used him too, didn't you?" I looked up at Eleanor, my hands coated in Julian’s blood. "You knew he had tipped you off in Paris. You knew he had given me the security footage. You’ve been monitoring both of us the entire time."

Eleanor sat on the metal bench opposite us, resting her hands on her knees. Her gaze was unblinking. "When you play a game against a syndicate that controls forty percent of the world’s high-tech textiles, Clara, you don't use conventional soldiers. You use leverage. You use jealousy. Sophia was always vain, shallow, and desperate to outshine you. It took very little nudging from my contacts to make her believe that stealing your dress would elevate her to the throne of Vance Holdings."

"You set up Sophia?" The horror was settling into my marrow. "She's my sister. Your daughter."

"She is her father’s daughter," Eleanor corrected ruthlessly. "She chose her side the day she opened my private safe in Milan and handed the schematics of the golden weft to David Vance’s lawyers. You were the only one who inherited the needle, Clara. Sophia inherited the greed."

Julian groaned, his head leaning back against the bulkhead. "She didn't know about the warhead, Eleanor. Sophia thought she was just stealing an haute couture gown to humiliate Clara and secure a marriage."

"Ignorance is not an excuse for treason," Eleanor said.

"Where are you taking us?" I asked, tying the knot tight over Julian’s shoulder, ignoring his sharp intake of breath.

"We are leaving French airspace," Eleanor replied, tapping a digital tablet attached to her tactical harness. "To the only place where the original patents can be permanently neutralized. The central vault of the Weaver's Guild in Geneva. And we have less than six hours before David’s international legal consortium activates the scorched-earth protocol."

On the floor, David Vance’s eyes suddenly fluttered open. A grotesque, blood-streaked grin spread across his bruised lips.

"You're too late, Eleanor," the patriarch rasped, coughing violently. "The broadcast... you think it only showed the wedding suite? You think Julian gave Clara an uncorrupted file?"