Three nights later, Silveria broke the rule.
It was a small rule. Damien had made it himself, in a flat voice, across the breakfast table. *Don't go anywhere without me or Felix.* She had agreed. She had kept it for three days, through two fittings at home and a long, grim afternoon in the library, going through boxes with Sasha.
She had shown Damien the shredded gown and the red paint, and he had gone so quiet that Rosa left the room. She had not shown him the tiny folded note from the silk. *Especially the husband.* She kept it in her sewing box, under the pins, and told herself she would tell him when she understood it.
But on the fourth day, Adriana called in a state of pure panic. A shipment of silk had arrived in the wrong color. Forty meters of it. The whole autumn line hung on one bolt of fabric, and only Silveria knew the dye.
"I'll take two guards," she told Damien on the phone. "I'll be back in an hour. It's three streets from the office."
