The assassin lay sprawled on the cold stone floor. His leg was bound with a makeshift bandage where the arrow had struck, the blood seeping through the cloth. His hands were tied tightly behind his back, the rope secured to a heavy iron ring set deep into the wall.
Derek walked into the cell. His boots made a heavy, echoing sound on the stone. His face was a mask of cold, intense concentration.
"Who wants you dead so desperately, Mari?" he thought, his mind cycling rapidly through the list of enemies they had made since their marriage.
"It can't be Liam," Derek reasoned, pacing a small circle around the prisoner. "Liam is possessive. He wants to own her, to use her against me. He protected her in this cell. He gave her a bed, a lamp. He wouldn't send a hired assassin to strangle her in the night. That is a move of desperation, not calculation. Liam plays chess. This... this is a bludgeon."
"Then who?"
