I hit the glasshouse floor on my knees, palms skidding across rainwater and crushed white roses.
Behind me, the iron doors locked with a sound that made every rib in my body remember the old family chapel, the old vows, the old promise my father sold before I was born.
Lian Valtieri stood beneath the dripping orchids in a black suit tailored too perfectly for a man with blood on his gloves. He peeled one glove off finger by finger, unhurried, as if I had arrived for dinner instead of capture.
"London was a sweet choice," he said. "Very public. Very expensive. Very foolish."
I forced myself upright. "You don't own me."
Lian crossed the wet marble between us. He did not raise his voice. He did not need to. "In this city, Scarlett, even your breath has to pass through my house."
He pinned me between the cold glass wall and the heat of his chest. His hand closed behind my neck, almost gentle, until the muzzle of a pistol touched the soft line beneath my ribs.