Elsbeth stood terrified as Garran dumped her basket over her head, scattering rose petals and a diamond bracelet across the carpet before loudly branding her a thief.

The sound of the gunshot rolled through the corridor like a thunderclap trapped in an iron pipe.

Truett did not hesitate. His right hand plunged into his armpit, clearing the leather holster in a fraction of a second. The matte-black Colt 1911 came up, the hammer cocked back with a distinct, metallic click that sent old Arthur Vance stumbling backward against the wall.

"Stay behind me," Truett ordered.

He didn't wait to see if they obeyed. Truett moved down the hallway with the predatory grace of an apex hunter, his shoes making no sound against the Persian runner. He reached the library’s double mahogany doors. The right door stood ajar by two inches, a thin wisp of acrid, gray gunsmoke drifting through the gap into the scented air of the hallway.

Truett kicked the door wide with his left foot, clearing the threshold with his weapon raised in a two-handed combat stance.

The library was cavernous, its walls lined with two stories of leather-bound books and brass-railed ladders. In the center of the room, behind a massive carved desk, a man sat slumped in a high-backed leather chair.

It was Julian Vance.

The groom’s white tuxedo jacket was soaked through with a dark, blossoming pool of crimson spreading from his left abdomen. His head was tilted back against the tufted leather, his eyes half-open and glassy, his chest rising and falling in shallow, ragged hitches.

Beside him, standing over the desk with a suppressed automatic pistol, was a man wearing the black vest and white shirt of the reception’s catering staff.

The fake waiter turned, his suppressed barrel coming up toward Truett’s face.

Truett fired first.

The unsuppressed .45 caliber round detonated in the enclosed room with deafening violence. The heavy bullet struck the gunman high in the center of his chest, throwing him backward over an antique mahogany credenza. The man crashed to the floor, his weapon skittering away across the hardwood, his boots kicking once before falling still.

Silence slammed back down over the library, broken only by Julian’s wet, whistling gasps.

Isolde rushed past Truett, her bridal veil ripping against the doorframe as she threw herself across the desk. "Julian! Julian, look at me!"

The groom’s glassy eyes rolled downward toward his bride. His lips were coated with pink foam. He reached out with a trembling, blood-slicked hand, his fingers catching weakly on the lace of her bodice.

"Isolde..." Julian wheezed, his voice bubbling with fluid. "They... they took the secondary codes. The safe... the wall safe behind the portrait is empty."

Truett stepped behind the desk, his weapon still lowered at the ready. He glanced at the open wall safe behind the painting of the family’s shipping fleet. It had been torched open with an industrial thermite strip, the metal around the lock melted into blackened slag.

"Who shot you, Julian?" Truett asked, his voice cutting through Isolde’s frantic weeping.

Julian looked past his wife, his gaze locking onto Truett Hawthorne. A bitter, dying smile touched the corner of his bloody mouth.

"The cartel... from Montreal," Julian rasped. "The St. Laurent syndicate. Garran... Garran told them we had the port authority’s deep-water privatization keys. We promised them the shipping lanes... to cover our debt."

Truett’s eyes narrowed into slits of frozen fury. "And the diamond bracelet?"

"A courier shell," Julian coughed, a violent spasm racking his torso. "The primary drive was inside it. But... but we didn't want to give it to them, Truett. We wanted to keep it. We were going to frame your family for the theft... so the syndicate would target Hawthorne logistics instead of us. It would give us forty-eight hours to clear out to Zurich..."

"You cowards," Truett whispered, the words dropping like lead weights onto the dying man’s chest. "You tried to trade my granddaughter’s life for a flight to Switzerland."

"Truett, please!" Garran cried from the doorway, falling to his knees on the Persian rug. "We didn't know they would send hitmen inside the house! They were only supposed to intercept your car after you left the grounds! They weren't supposed to touch anyone inside!"

"They are already inside, you idiot," Truett said, turning his cold gaze upon Garran.