BENEATH ASH AND AMBER

His shoes squeaked against the freshly waxed hospital floor as he sprinted toward Claire’s room.

“Security!” Dr. Vance bellowed behind him. “Lock down the corridor!”

Gabriel hurled his shoulder into the door of ICU Room 104, bursting inside.

The intruder spun around. Under the rim of a dark baseball cap, Gabriel caught a glimpse of razor-sharp eyes and a scarred jawline. It wasn't Henri. It was a hired enforcer.

The man had already grabbed Claire’s intravenous line, preparing to inject a clear, oily fluid straight into her port.

“Get away from her!” Gabriel roared, tackling the man across the bed.

The impact sent a tray of sterile instruments clattering against the wall. Gabriel gripped the intruder's wrist, fighting with every ounce of strength to keep the needle away from Claire’s pale throat.

The man struck Gabriel across the temple with an elbow, splitting Gabriel’s skin. Warm blood spilled over Gabriel’s eye, blinding him on the left side.

“You should have let the oven burn her, Moreau,” the man growled in a thick, raspy voice. “It would have been cleaner for everyone.”

“Who sent you? Was it Henri?” Gabriel gasped, twisting the man's arm downward.

The intruder sneered.

With a brutal knee to Gabriel’s midsection, the man broke free, knocked Gabriel sprawling across the linoleum, and threw the shattered syringe onto the floor.

Footsteps thundered outside. Hospital security guards rounded the corner with batons drawn.

The intruder knew his window had closed. He shattered the room’s exterior safety latch with a crowbar, kicked open the emergency fire door, and vanished down the concrete stairwell into the rain-swept night.

Gabriel dragged himself up, gasping for breath, clutching his ribs. He immediately lunged to Claire’s bedside.

Her monitor was beeping frantically.

Her eyelids twitched under the harsh fluorescent lights.

“Claire,” Gabriel choked out, his bloody hand gently hovering over her temple. “I’m here. I won’t let them touch you. I swear it.”

Madeleine stood frozen in the doorway, her hands over her mouth as two police officers secured the perimeter.

Ten minutes later, Detective Marcus Kane of the metropolitan homicide division entered the room. Kane was a stout, weathered man with tired eyes and a perpetually rumpled trench coat.

“Mr. Moreau,” Kane said, flashing his gold badge. “I’ve just come from the crematorium. We impounded your brother-in-law’s vehicle, abandoned two blocks away. He’s gone off the grid.”

“He tried to kill her twice,” Gabriel said, pointing to the shattered syringe on the floor. “Once at our home, and just now with a hitman. You need to put out an amber alert, a manhunt, whatever it takes!”

“We already have an active warrant out for Henri Laurent,” Detective Kane said calmly. “But I need you to answer a question that makes no sense on paper.”

“What question?”

Kane pulled out a manila folder and opened it under the lamp.

“Henri Laurent is broke. His import-export firm folded six months ago with four million dollars in debt to loan sharks. Claire, on the other hand, was an archivist at the municipal historical society. She earned forty-five thousand a year.”

Kane looked Gabriel dead in the eye.

“Why would a man bankrupt himself and risk life in prison to kill a sister with no life insurance and no significant assets?”

Gabriel frowned. “What do you mean, no assets? Claire didn't have money.”

“That’s what public records say,” Kane replied. “So why did Henri take out a twenty-million-dollar maritime salvage bond on an offshore trust registered solely under Claire’s maiden name three weeks ago?”

Gabriel felt the ground slipping away once more. Claire had never mentioned an offshore account, a trust, or anything involving millions of dollars.