Chapter 1
“My husband was buried wearing this. Who opened his coffin?”
Edmund stopped breathing.
The braided wedding band rested between my fingers.
Daniel’s ring.
I knew every mark on it.
The shallow scratch near the inner edge from the night he caught it against our kitchen counter. The tiny uneven section in the braid where Piper had chewed on it when she was teething and Daniel refused to have it repaired because he thought the dent was funny.
No imitation could reproduce that history.
This was his.
Behind me, Owen and Piper clung to my bodyguard near the doorway.
Safe.
That came first.
Derek pushed himself upright from the overturned chair.
“Marina, listen.”
I looked at him.
“You had my son’s face against a poker table.”
Silence.
“You let your father ask my daughter which child should pay a debt.”
More silence.
“So choose your next sentence carefully.”
Edmund’s eyes stayed on the ring.
Not me.
Interesting.
I stepped closer.
“Who opened the coffin?”
He whispered:
“We did.”
My hand tightened around the band.
Derek snapped:
“Dad.”
Too late.
“When?”
Edmund swallowed.
“Six weeks after the burial.”
Daniel had been dead eleven months.
Six weeks.
Grief had still been fresh enough that I sometimes woke reaching for him.
These men had already been at his grave.
“Why?”
Edmund looked toward the poker table.
“Because Daniel owed us something.”
I laughed once.
“No.”
Then held up the ring.
“You don’t open a coffin for money.”
His face changed.
Exactly.
“You were looking for this.”
No answer.
The casino enforcers remained behind me, heads lifted now but bodies perfectly still.
Derek noticed them.
“What are they doing?”
I ignored him.
I examined the ring more closely.
Something was wrong.
The braided outer band shifted beneath my thumb.
Daniel’s ring had never moved.
I twisted gently.
A section of the braid separated.
Inside was a narrow hollow channel.
Empty.
My blood went cold.
I looked at Edmund.
“The ring held something.”
His face drained completely.
Then he whispered the sentence that changed everything.
“It was empty when we opened it.”
I stared.
“What?”
May you like
Edmund’s voice became smaller.
“Someone had opened Daniel’s coffin before us.”
