Chapter 3
IRIS
The service corridor is colder than the rest of the museum. It’s a narrow artery of concrete and fluorescent safety lights, humming with a dying, flickering buzz.
I clutch the vase of white hydrangeas to my chest, the cold water inside sloshing against the glass, soaking the front of my sweater.
My sneakers screech on the linoleum.
Squeak. Squeak. Squeak.
A tiny sound otherwise, it’s deafening in the silence.
I check my watch. Roughly twenty minutes to three.
I have to get to the VIP Study, swap the vase, wipe down any pollen dust, and get out before the system flags the Chairman override as suspicious.
Just fix it, I tell myself. Just fix it and go home.
I force my breathing to even out.
Panic makes you sloppy.
And in my house, sloppiness is a sin.
I can’t afford a trace of those lilies to remain, or I’ll kill a man and sink my father’s ambitions. All because I missed a glaring allergy.
I push through the swinging double doors at the end of the corridor and emerge into the side gallery.
The transition from the sterile, ugly utility hallway to a world of shadows and velvet is jarring.
Usually, I love the museum at night. It feels sacred, a temple to artifacts that have survived centuries of war and chaos.
But tonight, it’s a tomb. The statues of Roman generals line the walls, their marble faces twisted in eternal scowls.
In the daylight, they look heroic. In the dark, illuminated only by the faint amber glow of the emergency exit signs, they’re judges, watching as I hurry past, their stone eyes tracking the intruder in the dark.
You shouldn’t be here, they seem to whisper. You are going to get caught.
I shiver, hugging the vase tighter. The water is freezing against my skin, seeping through the wool.
I’m ten feet from the door of the VIP Study when I hear it.
Phut. Phut.
It’s a soft sound. Mechanical. Like a staple gun, or a pressurized sneeze.
Then—Thud.
This sound is different. It’s heavy and wet, like a side of beef hitting a butcher’s block.
I stop mid-step, my pulse jumping in my throat.
A guard?
It has to be. One of the night patrolmen must have tripped, or maybe he dropped a flashlight. I scramble for a logical, safe explanation. A falling book. A shifting statue.
“Hello?” I call. The word barely clears my throat before the museum swallows it.
I wait.
Nothing.
Every instinct I have honed over the years walking on eggshells tells me to run. If you’re not supposed to be here, don’t be seen. My father’s rules are etched into my DNA: Be invisible. Be perfect. Be gone.
But then I think of the lilies.
I swallow the lump of terror in my throat and step forward.
The VIP Study’s door is slightly ajar. As I get closer, I see why. The wood around the lock is splintered, jagged shards sticking out where the mechanism has been forced.
A warning bell blares in my mind, but my momentum carries me forward. I nudge the door open with my shoulder, tightening my grip on the vase until I’m afraid the glass might crack in my hands.
I step into the room, a rehearsed apology already rising to my lips. It never leaves my mouth. My eyes land on the center of the rug. The breath punches out of my lungs.
The vase slips from my fingers.
CRASH.
Glass shatters against the marble floor, spraying water and white petals across my ankles. Shards of crystal skitter across the room like diamonds, sliding over the polished surface.
But I don’t look down. I can’t.
My eyes are locked on the center of the room where a violent scene spreads like a Renaissance martyrdom painting.
A man lies on the floor. He’s wearing a cheap brown suit with frayed cuffs. His eyes are wide open, staring at the ceiling, glassy and vacant. A hole mars his chest, and another decorates his forehead. A pool of blood spreads from beneath him, soaking into the grout of the pristine white tiles.
Wet iron and salt hang heavy in the air. It’s a reek that coats the back of my throat. But beneath that, overwhelming it, is the sickly, cloying scent of the orange lilies sitting on the table.
Standing over the body is a monster.
He is tall, terrifyingly tall, dressed in a black suit that fits his broad shoulders. He’s clutching a thick file folder in his left hand. In his right hand, held loosely by his thigh, is a gun.
A black, suppressed pistol.
He slides the folder into his jacket pocket, completely unbothered, as if he hasn’t ended a human life.
At the sound of the vase shattering, he stops.
He turns slowly, controlled enough to make my skin go cold.
I should turn and run. I should force my legs to carry me back into the rain.
But I am Iris Hale.
I was trained to go quiet. To sit in the corner of my father’s study while powerful men discussed politics, assessing the mood of a room before I breathed. To be invisible.
That training made me a perfect daughter. Tonight, it might also get me killed.
I go still. It’s like my mind steps sideways, leaving my body behind. I watch the room from a distance, cold and unreal, as if I’ve wandered into someone else’s nightmare.
The Killer.
He has dark hair, cut short. His face is hard and angular, composed of sharp lines and shadows that look carved from granite. But it’s his eyes that paralyze me. They are black voids. There is no panic in them. No fear. No remorse.
He looks at the dead body, the shattered vase, and ultimately, at me.
He tilts his head slightly. He isn’t looking at me like a man who has been caught committing a crime. He is looking at me like a man who has found a loose thread on an expensive suit jacket. An annoyance. An imperfection. Something to be snipped.
The realization hits me. He is going to kill me.
He takes a step toward me.
There isn’t any rush in him. That’s what breaks me. He already knows how this ends.
That single movement breaks the spell. My survival instinct kicks in, overriding the shock, overriding the “good girl” programming.
Run.
I scramble backward, my sneakers slipping on the wet floor, crunching on the broken glass. I turn toward the door, my hands grasping for the frame.
Even at my fastest, I’m too slow.
He doesn’t run; he blurs. He covers the distance in a heartbeat, moving so quickly my brain doesn’t catch up until he’s on me. He moves like smoke, like a shadow detaching itself from the wall.
A hard, heavy arm slams around my waist, lifting me off my feet. The impact knocks the wind out of me. He spins me around, bashing my back against the dark wood paneling of the wall. The force rattles my teeth and sends a shockwave of pain down my spine.
I open my mouth to shout, to summon the noise I should have made seconds ago, but a large hand clamps over it, sealing my lips shut.
His palm is warm, rough, and strong.
He pins me there, his body pressing mine into the wood. He is solid muscle, radiating heat. Immovable, like a cliff face. He smells of rain, expensive leather, and the metallic tang of gunpowder.
“Quiet,” he commands.
His voice is a low rumble against my ear.
I stare up at him, my chest heaving against his. I can’t get a full breath. His palm is clamped over my mouth, his thumb hard at my cheek, forcing my lips shut. I claw at his wrist, my fingernails digging into his skin, scraping uselessly. It’s like trying to fight a statue. He doesn’t flinch.
He leans in close, his dark eyes searching mine. He seems confused. Like he is waiting for a counter-strike—a hidden blade, a knee to the groin, a professional move.
But I have stopped fighting. I’m frozen, staring into the face of death. My voice is locked in a box inside my chest, and I have lost the key.
His hand moves from my mouth to my throat. His thumb rests against my pulse point. He can feel my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest.
“Who sent you?” he demands in a dangerous growl. “Are you with Volkov?”
I shake my head frantically, tears leaking from the corners of my eyes, blurring my vision. I try to speak, but his hand is too tight.
Volkov? Who is Volkov?
“I... flowers,” I choke out, the words barely audible, a whisper of air. “Just... the flowers.”
He glances down at the shattered white hydrangeas on the floor, the petals mixing with the water and the blood. Then he looks back at me, unmoved.
He doesn’t believe me.
Why would he? It’s midnight. I’m standing over a dead body in a locked museum.
“Wrong answer,” he says coldly.
He spins me around. Before I can process the movement, his arm snakes around my neck from behind.
He pulls me back against his chest, the crook of his elbow pinching the world down to a narrow black tunnel.
I gasp, my hands flying up to claw at his forearm, but he is locked in tight. It isn’t painful, but the effect is instant. The world begins to gray at the edges.
“Don’t fight,” he whispers against my hair. “It’s over.”
A wave of blind panic hits me. I’m dying. This is it. I’m going to die in a museum next to a vase of hydrangeas. I will never get out from under him. I will never build a life that is mine. My father will never say he is proud of me. He will just be angry that I died in such a messy way.
My vision begins to spot with black dots. My legs feel heavy, like they are filled with lead. The room starts to tilt. The sounds of the museum—the hum of the AC, the rain against the windows—begin to sound like they are underwater.
I sag against him, my fight draining away with my consciousness.
As the darkness creeps in, there’s movement in my peripheral vision. The service door at the end of the hallway bursts open.
Men swarm into the room.
There are four of them. They are dressed in black tactical gear, wearing balaclavas. They move silently, efficiently, like a hive of insects. They don’t look like thugs; they look like soldiers. They carry equipment cases and chemical sprayers.
His chest rumbles against my back as he addresses the lead soldier.
“Target neutralized,” he says, his voice flat and authoritative. “And we have a package.”
Package. I am the package.
He shifts his grip, pulling me tighter against his chest.
“Sanitize the room,” he commands the rest of the team. “Scrub everything. The body. The blood. The glass.”
The men move instantly, no questions asked.
My eyes are heavy. I can barely keep them open. I watch through a darkening tunnel of vision as the men go to work.
One of them grabs the dead man’s legs. Another grabs his arms. They lift him effortlessly, shoving him into a large black duffel bag. They zip it up, erasing him from existence.
Another man is spraying something on the floor—a foaming chemical that turns the red blood into a pale pink froth. He wipes it away with a specialized cloth, leaving the tile gleaming white.
And then, the last thing I see before the darkness takes me completely is the fourth man.
He walks over to the center table.
He picks up the vase of Asiatic Lilies.
“Take the flowers,” the monster commands from above me. “Take everything. Leave nothing behind.”
The man nods and drops the lilies into a trash bag.
A hysterical, bubbling laugh tries to rise in my throat, but I am too weak to let it out.
He’s taking the lilies.
I came here to save the Senator from the pollen. I came here to save my father’s legacy. I risked everything to remove those flowers.
And now, the killer is doing it for me.
The irony is the last thing I feel. The monster tightens his grip one last time.
“Sleep,” he commands.
The world snaps shut.