With my fingertips resting against the icy floor-to-ceiling glass of my sixty-fifth-floor penthouse office, I watched violet twilight engulf the streets below. The Opeline rose beneath my handcrafted Italian loafers, its dark tower descending toward the harbor waters. The immense black tower was an architectural landmark. Every inch of its imported limestone exterior, every hand-cut crystal suspended in the atrium, and every thread of eight-hundred-count Egyptian cotton in its four hundred luxury suites was indisputably mine. StudyChemistry Yet a sleek smartphone vibrated on the broad surface of my black marble desk. The glowing message reminded me that, to my own relatives, I remained the unwanted stray they had thrown into the winter cold ten years earlier.

Preston?” I asked, adjusting my cuffs.

“Marcus’s second tactical unit has successfully sealed the stairwells and locked down the service elevator on fifty-nine,” Tasha reported with grim satisfaction. “He has absolutely nowhere to go but up to the dining room.”

“Good,” I whispered, watching the glowing floor indicator climb: 50… 55… 58… 60. “Let the curtain rise.”

The lift chimed and its brass doors parted to the soft, elegant strains of a live chamber quartet playing Chopin. But the music was abruptly drowned out by the sound of high-pitched, hysterical

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