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Something else had caught my attention.

The smell.

It was faint. Vanilla, coffee, and something floral. Jasmine, maybe. The scent was everywhere now that I’d found it, that same sweet-floral note I hadn’t smelled in years. I remembered it in hallways, classrooms, on the edge of a scarf that wasn’t mine.

My boots echoed against the marble as I crossed to the kitchen island.

There was a mug, empty but not yet washed, sitting beside the sink. The faintest stain of foam still clung to the inside, the shape of a small heart traced into it. A latte. Carefully made.

No one Roman hired would have done that.

I stared at it for a long moment. My throat went dry.

“Find anything?” Dmitri asked from behind me.

I didn’t answer right away, but I could feel Roman’s eyes on my back.

“It’s nothing,” I said too quickly.

Roman chuckled. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Maybe I have,” I mumbled.

“Explain,” Dmitri said. His tone wasn’t a request.

I exhaled, staring at the mug. “She made coffee.”

Roman blinked. “And that means…?”

“She left a heart in the foam.”

Silence. Then Dmitri, dry as ever: “I fail to see the forensic significance of that.”

“It’s her,” I said quietly.

“Her who?” Roman asked, frowning.

I turned toward him. “Show me the photo again.”

He pulled it from his jacket and slid it across the island. The glossy image caught the light.

Her face was half-turned, blurred slightly, but the curve of her face, that posture—confident, like she owned the air she breathed.

I knew that stance. I’d hated that stance.

The memory hit me like a sucker punch.

We’d been seventeen at the time.

Me, the Markov family’s heir-in-waiting and her, the scholarship girl who didn’t know her place.

Back then, we’d gone to boarding school together. I’d ruled the place with quiet violence and a perfect smile.

And then there was her.

Kara Lennox.

Top of every class, infuriatingly composed, mouth always one step ahead of her fear.