Thornwick's POV
Senna.
I say the name out loud, alone in my study at six in the morning, and I watch how it lands. I've been turning it over since we found her name on the documents three hours ago. Since Elodie went pale and completely still in the way she goes still when something is hurting her and she has decided not to show it.
She's asleep now. I made her go. She fought me on it for eleven minutes — I counted — and then exhaustion won and she went without another word, which told me how tired she really was.
I sit with the printed pages and I build the list.
Three names. Three people who had access to the company finances, the knowledge to build shell accounts without tripping internal audits, and the reach to arrange both a car accident and a series of escalating threats without leaving obvious fingerprints.
Augustus Cross — Elodie's father. Sixty-one years old, built the family company from scratch, controls every account, trusts no one fully. Motive: the embezzlement originated in accounts he created. If Calista discovered it, it pointed directly to him. He had everything to lose.
Reverie Cross — Elodie's mother. Quieter, but she has signed off on company documents for thirty years. She knows where every number lives. And I've watched her watch Elodie with a particular kind of careful blankness that I now read differently than I did a month ago.
Senna Cross — the one Elodie trusted. The one who called to check in. The one who sent warnings dressed as concern. Her name is on the transfer authorizations. That's not circumstantial. That's a signature.
I call my investigator at six-fifteen.
Daren has worked for me for four years. He is thorough, quiet, and has never once asked why I need something. I give him all three names and everything we found. I tell him I need answers in seventy-two hours.
He tells me he'll do it in forty-eight.
Forty hours later, Daren calls back.
"It narrows to two," he says. "Augustus or Senna. Your mother-in-law is clean — she's been a signatory on paper but the actual account management happened through a separate login she didn't create and doesn't have the technical knowledge to run. Someone used her credentials once without her knowing. She's likely a victim too."
"Augustus or Senna," I repeat.
"Both had full access. Both had motive. Augustus had more to lose financially. Senna had more operational control — she's been managing that side of the business for three years while Augustus stepped back for health reasons."
"Can you prove which one?"
A pause. "Not yet. There's a layer I can't get through remotely. I need someone inside the company system."
"Work on it," I say.
I hang up and sit with the update. Not enough. Not yet. But the circle is tighter.
The call comes for Elodie at noon.
She's at the kitchen counter reading when her phone rings — unknown number, which she now answers on speaker so I can hear. I've asked her to. She fought me on that too and then agreed, and I knew it cost her something to give up that small piece of independence.
The voice is disguised. Filtered. Low and flat and stripped of anything human.
"Stop investigating," it says. "Or join your sister in her coma."
Three seconds. Then the call ends.
Elodie sets the phone down on the counter very slowly. She stares at it for a moment.
"Okay," she says.
"Okay what?" I ask.
"Okay, they're scared." She looks up at me and her eyes are clear and furious and completely decided. "People who aren't scared don't make calls like that. We're close. That's why they're escalating."
I want to tell her to stop. I want to put her somewhere safe and lock the door and handle this myself.
I know better by now.
"We keep going," I say instead.
She nods once. "We keep going."
But that night I lie awake for two hours after she falls asleep and I count every possible way this ends badly. There are more than I want to name.
Augustus calls the next morning.
His voice is warm and large, the voice of a man who has never once questioned his own welcome in a room.
"The Cross Shipping annual gala is in two weeks," he says. "The whole family, major investors, press. You and Elodie should be there. Good for optics. Show everyone the marriage is solid."
A major public event. Hundreds of people. Escalating threats. A killer we haven't identified yet.
"We'll be there," I say.
I hang up and immediately double Elodie's security detail. Add a third person to the rotation. Run a background check on every staff member with access to our floor. Brief my driver.
Elodie watches me do all of this without comment.
Then she says, "You think he called to get us into the open."
"I think whoever is behind this has been watching our pattern. We don't go to crowded events. We've been careful. A gala changes that."
"So we don't go."
"If we don't go, we tip our hand. They know we suspect someone close. We lose the element of surprise."
She thinks about this. "And if we go?"
"We watch. We listen. And Daren will have the final answer by then."
She doesn't look convinced. Neither am I. But there are no clean options anymore, only the least dangerous ones.
The night before the gala, I find her standing by the window in the dark.
Not crying. Just standing. Looking at the city like it owes her an answer.
I cross the room and put my arms around her from behind and she leans back into me without a word, and we stay like that for a long time.
"I need to tell you something," I say finally.
"Tell me."
"Whatever happens tomorrow. Whatever we find out, whoever it is, however messy it gets." I pause. Find the words carefully, because I've spent my whole life saying the efficient thing and I want to say the true thing for once. "You are not a replacement. You were never a placeholder. I chose you. I keep choosing you. Every morning when I make that second cup of coffee. Every meeting where I think about what you'd say. Every night when I can't sleep and you're the reason I eventually do." I breathe. "You are my choice. I need you to know that before we walk into that room tomorrow."
She's quiet for a moment.
Then she turns in my arms and looks at me with those eyes that see too much and she says, "I know. That's what scares me the most."
I don't have an answer for that. So I hold her tighter.
The gala is at eight.
At seven-forty-five we are both ready. She looks at me across the room and something in her face is working very hard to stay calm.
"Your instincts," I say. "What are they telling you?"
She doesn't hesitate. "That we shouldn't go."
"But?"
"But Daren called twenty minutes ago." She holds my gaze. "He found the proof. He knows which one it is. He's sending everything to your phone during the gala—encrypted file, timed delivery, can't be intercepted." A pause. "He says we have to be there when it arrives. Because the person we're exposing will also be there. And if they see us read it, they'll run. We only get one window to catch them before they disappear."
I stare at her.
"You spoke to Daren without telling me."
"Twenty minutes ago. You were with security."
"Elodie—"
"I know," she says. "I know how it sounds. But Thornwick—" she steps toward me, and her voice is low and certain and just slightly afraid— "he also told me something else. About why the killer keeps targeting me specifically and not you. About what I have that you don't. About what they actually want."
She stops.
"What?" I ask.
Her phone buzzes in her hand. She looks down at the screen.
And every drop of color leaves her face.