It had been the final move in a long game that began with his brother’s signature on a fraudulent loan, and was meant to end with Daniel’s ring on her finger and a dead man who could never come back to object.

Chapter 14 — The Recording

Daniel did not go home to rage or to grieve.

He went to work, with the cold, clear focus of a man who has understood a threat completely and intends to end it lawfully and without a single mistake.

He called his attorney.

He called a senior investigator he trusted at the district attorney’s office.

And he sent two trusted security employees, immediately, to the apartment in East Los Angeles, to protect a seven-year-old boy named Noah before Vanessa’s hired men could reach him.

Only when Noah was safe did Daniel return to the mansion, just before sunrise.