“It’s not a bad idea,” Annie said to Bridget as Sloane wiped the sweat from her face.

“We could put something in place by then,” Bridget agreed.

“You didn’t ask Gabe, did you?” Annie asked.

Sloane shook her head. “He’d tell me no. He wants me to wait this thing out, but I can’t. My graduation is in a couple of days, and I want to walk across that stage without worrying that my mother will kill me or those I love.”

“I really like you. I have two sons if you decide against becoming a princess,” Annie kidded.

Bridget shook her head. “Dani would kill you if you poached her potential daughter-in-law.”

“I think it’s a little soon to be talking about marrying anyone,” Sloane said.

Both women looked at each other and laughed.

“What?”

“Oh, you’ll see,” Annie smiled.

“In the meantime, go to lunch with Piper and Layne. We’ll text you with the plan,” Bridget instructed.

“Does anyone have a car I can borrow?” Sloane asked.

“You can take the Keeneston taxi service,” Annie said with a wicked gleam to her eye.

An hour later, Sloane knew why Annie had that gleam when an old man with a jolly potbelly pulled up to meet her at the farm.

“Hiya, Sloane, I’m John Wolfe. I hear you need a ride and a plan to capture your mother. Let’s talk.”

---

Gabe felt on top of the world. He was earning Draven’s trust and the meetings were finally productive. Draven was making rational arguments for certain measures. Suri and Idris even seemed receptive to some of the measures brought up by Draven. He couldn’t wait to get back and tell Sloane all about it.

Gabe looked at his watch—2:50 in the afternoon. She should be back at the house by now. Maybe he could slip over during the upcoming afternoon break. Veronica and Nash casually looked at their phones and Gabe felt the prickling of fear as Nash strode silently from the room.

He pulled out his phone but there was no text message. Veronica was doing that thing where she was madly typing all the while never looking down at her phone. Gabe could see her forearms moving as her fingers flew over the phone hidden under the table. When she smiled at being caught by Gabe, he felt his stomach plummet. Veronica didn’t smile over normal text messages.

“Give me your phone,” Gabe whispered as Suri and Draven worked on a mutually beneficial measure to the treaty.

“No,” Veronica smiled. “We’re in a meeting. You know the rule.”

“Give it to me. Right. Now,” Gabe said between clenched teeth.

“You’ll have to pry it from my cold, dead fingers,” Veronica replied sweetly. Gabe didn’t wait. He launched himself over the table, tackling Veronica. They fell in a heap on the floor as the chair tipped over.

“I thought you said I couldn’t do that,” Draven said with confusion as everyone jumped up.

Gabe didn’t answer as he went after the phone. She fought valiantly. He took a shot to the kidneys and her knee almost hit the mark, but he was used to wrestling with Abby. Finally, he pried the phone finger by finger from her perfectly manicured hand. Veronica cursed him, Suri lectured him, and Draven complained about getting in trouble the last time he did that.

Sloane is luring her mother to Keeneston. Layne will drop her off at the café at 3:00 and then Sloane will stroll up Main Street toward Southern Charms. Paige, Cole, and Ryan will be inside Southern Charms. The rest of you need to be lining Main Street, both inside and outside the shops. Report in with locations when you’re in position.

“Like hell she is!” Gabe jumped up and then cursed as he scrolled down. “This was from two hours ago!”

He scrolled down reading as people reported that they were in position. Nash was going to block the exit from Keeneston and close in from behind. He would be there at 3:05.

“What is it?” Draven asked.

“Sloane is the bait and her mother has her in the crosshairs.”

“I don’t follow. Is she in danger?” Draven asked.

“Yes, and Veronica, you’re fired,” was all Gabe got out before storming out of the room. He was running toward his sports car when he noticed he wasn’t alone.

“Then I’ll come with you. That’s what friends do, yes?” Draven asked as his guards rushed after him.

“Get in. Tell your guards to protect Sloane at all costs. And make sure your sword doesn’t poke a hole in my car.”

Draven shouted out the order in his language and slid into the leather seat of the Corvette as he angled his dress sword off the leather. He looked ready to ride into battle with his dress military uniform—except for the fact he was riding in a Corvette and not on a horse. “I need one of these,” he said as Gabe shot out of the farm.

“You help me save Sloane and it’s yours.”

---

Sloane saw her sister first. She was at the bar in the hotel as Sloane walked by with Layne and Piper. Sloane didn’t say anything as Piper and Layne chatted about their day so far. It wasn’t until they were seated and she saw her sister on her phone that Sloane told them she’d been spotted.

“Don’t look at her,” Layne said with a smile on her face.

“And eat at least two-thirds of your meal,” Piper laughed.

“Which one is she?” Layne asked as she looked at the menu.

“She’s at the bar. Dark auburn hair slicked back into a chin-length bob. She’s in the deep red sundress and black heels,” Sloane said, looking at the menu but not seeing a single word of it.

“Got her,” Layne said. “She’s staring at you.”

“I can feel it. It’s like a knife in my back,” Sloane said with a shudder.

“You’re safe here. If you survived John Wolfe driving you here, this will be easy,” Piper joked, trying to lighten the mood. It didn’t work. Their phones buzzed and the cousins looked at each other. “Everything is set in Keeneston.”

“Does Gabe know?” Sloane asked, slightly afraid to hear the answer either way.

“Nope. Looks like they kept him off the text loop,” Piper said, scrolling through the messages.

That was the only thing that got her through lunch, especially when it was time to leave and her sister was nowhere in sight. “Where is she?” Sloane asked.

“Your mother came downstairs. They talked for forty-nine seconds and your sister went to the elevators. Your mother watched you for thirteen seconds before heading out the front door exactly five minutes and twenty-eight seconds ago,” Layne said, sounding exactly like her father.

“I guess the Special Forces training rubbed off, huh?” Piper teased as they headed out the door. Piper said goodbye and went to get her car, parked nearby, as the valet brought Layne’s to her.

Sloane got into the SUV and took a deep breath, and Layne walked around and got in. “Keep smiling as if we’re chatting about men.”

“Would we be smiling for that? Most of the time when women talk about men it’s to complain . . . unless they’re super hot.”

Layne pulled out into traffic. “Good point. Puppies then. We’re talking about puppies.”

Sloane managed a small laugh as Layne drove. It didn’t take long for Layne to spot the car trailing them. “I have a red Mercedes trailing me. Could be your mom.”

“I didn’t even see you looking.” Sloane was filled with wonder even as her body grew tense with fear.

“Another trick my dad taught me,” Layne replied.

“What other tricks did your dad teach you?”

“I know how to kill someone seven different ways with a spoon.” Layne seemed completely serious.

“My dad taught me how to mix a speedball,” Sloane said, trying to find something to say comparable to being able to kill someone with a spoon.

“To each their own. We’re definitely being followed. I took a weird way out of town. Anyone from here wouldn’t have followed.” Layne gave Sloane her phone. “Text Annie that our ETA is three o’clock.”

---

Gabe’s heart had stopped beating the second he read the text message. How could Sloane do this? He had told her to wait. They would find a way to bring them down as the prosecutor and the feds worked on obtaining warrants for Sloane’s grandparents’ backyard. Detective Braxton said they were finding connections between the scientist and the Malone family first. They didn’t want to dig up the backyard only to have the Malones weasel out of multiple murder convictions by blaming the murders on Lisa’s parents—something Sloane agreed would probably happen.

Instead, Sloane said goodbye to him this morning. He should have known. She’d been sad when she had said it. Cornfields and cows flew by as Draven smiled. Gabe had filled him in and now they seemed to be buddies. Afterall, Draven was by his side when all of his so-called friends were leaving him in the dark. He felt the anger from that betrayal very deeply.

“What a beautiful car.” Draven almost giggled as Gabe took a sharp turn at sixty miles per hour. “You must love Sloane very much to part with this fine machine.”

“I’d part with everything I own if it means Sloane is safe. And once she is, I don’t know if I’m going to throttle her or kiss her.”

“Ah.” Draven smiled as horses raced in the pastures they drove by. “Because she didn’t listen to you. You know, I hate to point this out, but during our talks, you said—”

“I’ll kick you out the door right now if you start repeating my lectures to me. I know what I said, but she didn’t respect me enough to tell me her plan. Then she convinced my own friends to keep me in the dark.”

Draven looked behind them. “I fear it may be up to me to save our damsel in distress. You’ve lost my men.”

Three more minutes—Gabe had to keep it together for three more minutes.

---

Layne parked the car in front of the café. There were some people sitting at the bistro tables. Sloane recognized Sophie and her mother, Annie, sitting there. As Sloane said goodbye to Layne, Sophie and Annie paid their bill and started to walk up the street.

Sloane heard a car pull in down the street but didn’t look. It had to be her mother. Instead of turning around to look, Sloane followed a little distance behind Sophie and Annie. Across the street, Bridget and one of Sophie’s cousins were talking; two dogs were by their side: one was a police dog and the other was rust-colored with a pink rhinestone collar.

“I’ll let you go to the bank and meet up with you in a sec. I want to run to the antiques store to see if they have a chair for my living room,” the young woman with the rust-colored dog called out as she crossed the street toward Sloane.

Sloane kept walking. She felt someone behind her but still didn’t turn as she headed to Southern Charms on the other end of Main Street. She guessed the girl with the dog filed in behind her mother as Bridget kept pace with Sloane from across the street.

Up ahead, a large black pickup truck pulled to a stop slightly past Southern Charms. It wasn’t a normal pickup truck, though. It was as wide as a street lane and had tires with studs on them. A dark figure got out and kicked a tire. It had to be Nash. Two men walked out of the feed store and approached Nash. She thought one looked to be Layne’s father and the other one had hair cut so short it almost looked as if it were shaved. Cy—that was his name, Sloane remembered as she focused on window-shopping instead of the men at the end of the street changing the tire.

Sloane looked in a window of an artist’s studio. Instead of seeing a painting, she almost jumped as Cade, Annie’s husband, stared out at her and winked. Across the street, Bridget stopped at the bank as Ahmed exited.

“Oh! Can I bother you for a moment? Would you mind holding Tulip while I run inside?” Bridget asked her husband.

“Tulip?” Ahmed looked very puzzled at the dog’s name.

“She’s a therapy dog in training. It’s good for her to be around other people. I won’t be but a minute,” Bridget said kindly. Her words didn’t echo off the building nor were they too quiet to be unheard. Sloane could make them out, but only because she was focused on her surroundings . . . just like her mother would be.

Taking a deep breath and feeling the safety of the town around her, Sloane headed toward Southern Charms. As she crossed the street, she heard her mother for the first time. Her brain told her to stop walking and turn around, but she didn’t.

“Get that dog off me,” her mother had hissed.

A woman apologized. “I’m so sorry. Robyn has a thing for goosing people. She sees a skirt and just goes for it. I know, that nose is cold on your butt!”

Sloane opened the door and stepped into the little shop, closing the door behind her. Paige was behind the counter. “You okay? Breathe.”

Sloane nodded. “She’s right behind me.”

“Head back into the hat room. Ryan is there, but you won’t see him. Cole is in the children’s area in case he needs to close in. The place is filled with cameras. Everything will be seen and recorded.” Paige looked out the window. “Go, now.”

Sloane followed to where Paige was pointing. The front room was all gifts and items that could be personalized. The back room housed things for children—handmade wooden trains, embroidered blankets, and so on. Opposite the stairs leading up to an apartment was the hat room. Next to the hat room was handmade women’s clothing.

“You’ll find a hat for your party. Call me if you don’t see anything you like and I can customize something,” Paige called out to Sloane as someone new entered the store. “Hiya. Can I help you?”

“Did I hear you have hats?” Lisa Malone asked in a low voice Sloane guessed was to prevent her from hearing her mother’s approach.

“Psst.”

Sloane heard the small sound coming from the full-length mirror surrounded on each side by decorative curtains. Somewhere behind there was Ryan. Sloane grabbed two hats and hurried to stand in front of the mirror.

“Hats, yes,” Paige said cheerfully. “Right back there. Just give a shout if you need any help. I can customize them as well.”

With shaking hands, Sloane set a wide-brimmed work of art on her head. It was golden brown with a peacock teal ribbon around it. In the back, peacock feathers fanned out in the middle of an elaborate bow. The effect was that of a peacock’s body and tail feathers. No wonder Paige was famous for her Derby hats.

“How many times do I have to tell you brown—even golden brown—makes you look like mud.”

Sloane’s heart leapt from her chest as her mother’s reflection appeared in the mirror. “Hello, Mother. I figured you’d find me sooner or later. Where’s your evil twin?”

Lisa Malone stood tall and regal, wearing a diamond necklace so big it had to be worth millions. Her pale blue suit was probably worth thousands. It all pulled together to look like someone trying very hard to look as rich as they were. Her mother’s lips turned up in a sneer.

“I assume you’re talking about your sister. Excited to see her? You’ll have to wait for that happy reunion. I sent her back to Chicago to prepare for your return. You’re smarter than I give you credit for, though. The flip-flops in Lake Michigan were a good touch. But other than that, I see you’re still the same sad, pathetic creature who could never do anything right.”

“And you’ve gotten old. I see you’re still looking desperate to fit in with the elite crowd,” Sloane said, adjusting her hat. The fear she felt at first seeing her mother tore away as anger ripped at her to be released.

Her mother’s smooth creamy face began to mirror the anger Sloane felt. “You’re still a disrespectful little bitch. I should have taken you in hand long ago,” her mother spat.

Sloane glared at her mother’s reflection. “As if breaking my leg, starving me, and beating me wasn’t enough. Maybe you just didn’t learn your lesson?”

“You deserved it. You were such a disappointment. What lesson could you possibly be giving me?” her mother asked, inching forward.

“That bad never wins against good.”

Her mother laughed. “You sold drugs to children. You cut drugs to sell. You sat in on meetings with the cartel. You faked your own death. I don’t think you’re so innocent.”

“You forced me to sell those drugs with threat of starvation and beatings,” Sloane accused.

“Well, one of my soldiers selling drugs at the most elite private school would draw attention. You didn’t. And you sold a lot.”

Sloane just grinned and went back to adjusting her hat.

“What do you have to smile about? You’re being used by the Playboy Prince. At least get a brat out of it so you have some connections with the royals of the world. Now that you’re back in the arms of the family, I better put you back to work. This could be a good revenue stream for us.”

Sloane froze and stared at her mother in the mirror. “You want me to get pregnant with Gabe’s baby and sell drugs to his friends and family? You can’t be serious?”

“I’m always serious when it comes to money. And you’ve deprived me of nine years of it. The amount you could have brought in during college alone should make me slice your throat here and now. But the prospect of having you sell and transport drugs to the rich and famous, well, that may just keep you alive.”

Sloane watched as her mother’s eyes glazed over with greed. Death would be preferable to working with her mother in the family business.

“I don’t think so. You’ll have to kill me. Will you bury me under the shed at grandpa’s house with the scientist and all the others you killed?”

The explosion of pain came fast and hard as her mother’s open hand connected with her cheek. Sloane’s eyes stung, but old habits kicked in. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t cry. In fact, she didn’t react at all.

“Touchy about the murders you’ve committed?” Sloane asked, instead of reacting.

“You ungrateful brat. I killed them in the development of White Lace, which you stole! We would have made billions if it weren’t for you. We’d be living on our own private island, and you ruined all of that. Now, give me the recipe you stole, and I’ll let you continue being useful to me with that prince of yours.” Her mother grabbed Sloane. The diamond earrings glinted in the light of the shop as her nails dug painfully into her daughter’s arm.

“So you can kill even more people with the drug? White Lace is deadly. You know that!”

“Shut up!” her mother hissed. “White Lace is more important to me than you are, so you better tell me where it is, or I’ll stop caring about the royal market and end you now.”

Sloane felt something jab her slightly under her breast. When she looked down, she saw the muzzle of a gun pressed against the front of her ribs. Sloane only had to call for help, but she didn’t need to. She saw her mother’s eyes shift to look at something behind Sloane. Ryan Parker had just gotten Lisa’s attention.

“FBI. Lisa Malone, you’re under arrest. Put your hands up and get down on the ground,” Ryan ordered clearly and calmly.

The hate in her mother’s eyes told Sloane everything she needed to know—Sloane was going to die.