“Your work is whatever I tell you it is, Kate.”

“I am not your employee,” I said.

“You are alive because of me,” he said. “That makes you my responsibility.”

He set the glass down with a soft, final thud.

“Eight o’clock,” he said. “Do not be late.”

He turned and walked out of the room, his guards falling into step behind him.

I stood alone in the gallery for a long time.

My heart was still hammering against my ribs.

I looked down at my phone.

There were no messages from Tristan.

The immediate threat was gone, but the trap around me had only grown larger.

The next morning, the sky over Manhattan was the color of dirty ice.

A cold sleet was tapping against the windows of the Sterling building.

The headquarters occupied the top three floors of a black glass tower in the Financial District.

The security at the front desk didn’t ask for my name.

They simply handed me a sleek, black keycard.

The elevator ride to the sixty-fifth floor was silent and incredibly fast.