The drive back to the Vance estate felt entirely different than the drive away from it. When Clara Sterling had left the house hours earlier, she had been a woman suffocating under the weight of an invisible, crushing darkness. Now, as her car tires crunched over the pristine white gravel of the man

The summons came at exactly ten o'clock the next morning.

Clara was sitting in the guest bedroom, calmly folding a cashmere sweater and placing it into a single, sleek leather suitcase. She didn't need to pack much. She just needed the essentials. The rest of her belongings—the designer gowns Juli

The silence in the guest bedroom was absolute, broken only by the sharp, metallic *zip* of Clara Sterling’s leather suitcase.

She stood in the center of the impeccably decorated room, staring at the single piece of luggage that now contained the entirety of her future. A few practical sweaters, a