You froze her for nothing.

You lost the money before you ever left the party.”

I felt his grip falter — not from any horror at what he’d done, not from mercy, but from the pure, stunned greed of a man learning his payday had never existed.

“That money was mine,” he muttered.

And in that half-second where his attention slipped from me to his vanished fortune, I brought my heel down on his foot with all my weight and snapped my head back into his face, and he staggered, and Marcus was already moving — across the bed and into him, taking him down to the floor as the knife spun away under the nightstand, and then the officers were through the door, and there were knees and shouted commands and the hard final click of handcuffs.

“You’ll end up with nothing, Clara!” he screamed as they hauled him up.