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Cain waits several moments before he moves his king.

Wrong square.

He sees it a moment after I do.

Mate in one.

No escape unless I choose not to take it.

I pick up my queen and set it down. “Checkmate.”

Cain leans back. “Well,” he says. “That’s new.”

“It’s a game.”

“No,” he says. “It never is.”

Cain begins resetting the captured pieces beside the board. Pawns aligned. Rook. Bishop. Knight. Queen. “I’ve tried to delegate the Delaney matter elsewhere,” he says.

I keep my face still. “Have you?”

“Yes.” He places his queen upright beside the board. “But my resource disappointed me.”

“Unfortunate,” I say.

“Very.”

“What does Father want?”

Cain rises, walks to the door, and then turns to look at me. “Take care of it yourself.” Then he walks out, closing the door behind him.

Every muscle in my body locks.

Did he really just tell me to kill Samson’s girlfriend? And does he think, for a moment, that I take orders from him?

My first real win over Cain in decades, and all it proves is that he’s distracted enough to lose or manipulative enough to let me think he did.

Either possibility should terrify me.

I cross to the door and lock it.

I don’t want to kill Delaney Cross. Hell, I don’t even know where she is. I searched Samson’s castle from top to bottom, and all I found was that enigmatic sticky note.

I grab my phone and check the time.

I call Samson again. Straight to voicemail. I hang up before his recorded voice can finish.

Then I unlock my office door, step into the hallway, and find myself wandering the less habited areas of the house.

I don’t know why.

But then maybe I do, because in the hallway leading to the older guest wing, I find her.

Ella Hart.

She stands beside a bust of my father.

“Ella.”