Chapter 1 - THE WRONG BRIDE
The sack came off Mave Collins's head, and the man who had ordered her kidnapping stopped smiling.
His men had stolen the wrong sister—and one of them was already asking where to dump her body.
Then Declan Hayes saw the scars beneath her white robe.
“Stand still,” Mave said around the dress pins between her teeth.
Chloe shifted anyway. The ivory hem slipped from Mave's fingers, brushing the penthouse carpet. Above her, her sister examined herself in the mirror with the grave concentration of a woman inspecting a flaw in something very expensive.
“It's crooked.”
“It will be if you keep moving.”
The bridal suite smelled of hairspray, lilies, and champagne. Outside its tall windows, rain softened the city into silver streaks. Inside, the broken air conditioner hummed uselessly while Mave knelt in a maroon bridesmaid dress that pinched beneath her arms.
Chloe had chosen it without asking her size.
“You can wear the robe until the pictures,” she'd said, handing Mave white satin with BRIDE SQUAD stitched across the back.
Mave wore it now.
She had learned to accept small mercies without examining their motives.
Beyond the door, guests were gathering for Chloe's marriage to Gideon Blake, heir to a criminal dynasty that had turned shipping companies into respectable stationery. Their father called him a businessman.
People who knew better lowered their voices before saying his name.
Mave bent over the hem again.
The door exploded inward.
She dropped the pins.
Three men entered wearing black, their faces partially covered. One seized Chloe, but his shoe slid through spilled champagne.
Chloe bit his hand, screamed, and ran into the adjoining bathroom.
The lock snapped shut.
“Grab the bride,” someone barked. “We're out of time.”
Mave tried to stand.
A fist caught her robe.
“No—”
Rough fabric scraped over her face.
Her hands struck someone's chest, then her feet left the carpet.
A shoulder drove into her stomach as she was carried toward the door.
“She’s not—” one man began.
“White robe. Take her.”
Mave kicked hard enough to connect with a shin.
The man holding her swore but kept moving.
Every stair jolted through her ribs, and the sack smelled of wet rope and old tobacco.
Then metal struck her hip.
A vehicle door slammed.
As the van accelerated, plastic tightened around her wrists.
She tried to shout her name.
The engine swallowed it.
The ride lasted long enough for terror to become exhaustion.
Mave counted turns, lost count, and began again.
Nobody explained anything.
A radio murmured near the driver, and once a man complained that the wedding would already be over.
When the doors finally opened, cold air carried the smell of salt water.
The docks.
Hands dragged her through a doorway and pushed her into a wooden chair.
“Take it off.”
The voice was quiet.
That made it worse.
The sack lifted, and fluorescent light stabbed her eyes.
Mave blinked until the warehouse came into focus.
Peeling paint.
Damp concrete.
Three armed men.
And one man in a charcoal suit standing directly before her.
Declan Hayes.
She knew his face from a photograph her father had hidden beneath a stack of contracts.
The ghost of the north side.
He looked at her robe.
Then her face.
His expression changed.
“What’s your name?”
“Mave Collins.”
He turned toward the man beside the door.
“Finn.”
“Boss?”
“You took the wrong sister.”
Finn began explaining.
White robe.
Bathroom door.
No time.
Declan listened without moving.
“She’s no use,” Finn finally said. “We can get rid of her.”
Mave stared at the floor.
Nobody would pay for her.
Not Gideon.
Not her father.
Perhaps not even Chloe.
“Quiet,” Declan said.
He stepped behind her, and a blade touched the restraint around her wrists.
The plastic snapped.
“Stand.”
Mave rose, holding her numb hands together.
Declan looked at the white robe.
“We need to check your clothes for a tracker.”
“No,” she said.
It was barely audible.
He reached toward the lapel.
She recoiled, and the satin slipped from her shoulder.
His eyes dropped.
A strip of old, twisted scar tissue showed above the edge of her dress.
Declan went still.
“Who did that to you?”
Mave pulled the robe closed.
“Nobody.”
“That wasn't nobody.”
“It was an accident.”
“What kind?”
She looked at him.
“The kind that's none of your business.”
Finn made a disbelieving sound.
Declan glanced at him.
Finn became silent.
Then Declan looked at Mave again.
“How old?”
“What?”
“The scars.”
She hated how calmly he asked.
Not with pity.
Not with fascination.
Recognition.
“I was seventeen.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Fire?”
Her stomach dropped.
She said nothing.
Declan stepped closer.
“Where?”
“Why?”
“Because I've seen burns like that before.”
“They're old.”
“Where, Mave?”
She looked toward the warehouse door.
“I thought you kidnapped me because you wanted Chloe.”
“I did.”
“So return me.”
Something changed in his expression.
“I asked where the fire happened.”
“Collins Lake House.”
Silence.
Not ordinary silence.
The kind that arrives when everyone in a room knows something except you.
Finn looked at Declan.
“Boss.”
Declan raised one hand.
“When?”
Mave swallowed.
“Eleven years ago.”
His face went blank.
“What month?”
“November.”
“Date.”
She stared.
“November seventeenth.”
Declan took one step backward.
Finn whispered something under his breath.
Mave heard only two words.
Jesus Christ.
“What?”
Nobody answered.
“What happened November seventeenth?”
Declan turned away.
“Finn, call Hawthorne.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
Mave's heart accelerated.
“Who is Hawthorne?”
Declan ignored her.
She grabbed his sleeve.
Every gun in the room shifted.
Mave noticed.
She didn't let go.
“Why does my scar matter to you?”
Declan looked at her hand on his sleeve.
Then at her.
“Because on November seventeenth, eleven years ago, my younger brother disappeared.”
Her fingers loosened.
“What does that have to do with me?”
“He was last seen alive at Collins Lake House.”
Mave stopped breathing.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“My father said nobody else was there.”
“Your father lied.”
The warehouse seemed to move beneath her.
Mave remembered smoke.
Heat.
A locked door.
Someone shouting downstairs.
A man's hand pushing her through a broken window.
She had spent eleven years believing that man was a firefighter.
“What was your brother's name?”
Declan didn't answer immediately.
“Sean.”
Mave's knees weakened.
Declan caught her elbow before she fell.
She pulled away.
“No.”
“What?”
She pressed both hands against her mouth.
Memory arrived not as a picture but as a voice.
A young man's voice.
Get down.
Cover your face.
Don't open that door.
Then another fragment.
If you get out, tell Declan—
Mave looked at the man standing before her.
Her face went cold.
“He knew your name.”
Declan didn't move.
“What did you say?”
“The man in the fire.”
“What man?”
“The one who got me out.”
Finn stared.
Declan's voice dropped.
“Mave.”
“He told me to tell someone named Declan.”
The room disappeared around them.
“What did he tell you?”
“I don't remember.”
“Try.”
“I said I don't remember.”
Declan's control cracked.
“What did Sean tell you?”
“I WAS ON FIRE!”
The words exploded out of her.
Everyone froze.
Mave's chest heaved.
“I was seventeen. My dress was burning. There was smoke everywhere. I spent six weeks in a hospital and another year learning how to sleep without waking up screaming.”
Declan said nothing.
“I don't remember his message.”
Her voice broke.
“I barely remembered him.”
Declan stepped back.
The anger disappeared.
Not because he was suddenly gentle.
Because he understood he'd asked the wrong question.
Mave wrapped the robe around herself.
“Send me home.”
“No.”
She stared at him.
“What?”
“You're not going back.”
“You kidnapped the wrong person.”
“I know.”
“Then give me back.”
Declan's eyes hardened.
“No.”
Fear returned.
“Why?”
His answer came quietly.
“Because if Sean pulled you out of that fire, your father has lied about that night for eleven years.”
“That doesn't mean—”
“And today your father was marrying his other daughter to Gideon Blake.”
“So?”
Declan stared at her.
“Gideon's father owned Collins Lake House the year it burned.”
Mave felt the floor disappear beneath her.
“And if I'm right about why Sean was there—”
He looked at the scars she'd hidden for eleven years.
May you like
“Returning you to your family would be the same as delivering a witness back to the people who already tried to burn her once.”
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