Chapter 1
“Now, let’s talk about what he heard.”
Noah stayed behind my leg while I looked at Victoria.
“What scared you?”
Her face emptied.
Marcus stood twenty feet away with four of my bodyguards around him. Nobody had touched him.
They did not need to.
The moment Victoria lunged toward Noah, Marcus had taken one step toward the nearest exit.
That was enough.
Maria crouched beside my son and opened a small case.
“Boss.”
I looked down.
Inside rested Noah’s spare hearing aid.
Always prepared.
Always Maria.
She fitted it carefully while Noah continued crying.
Then he looked toward me.
The tiny device came alive.
His face relaxed slightly.
“Can you hear me?”
He nodded.
I crouched.
“You said you heard everything.”
Victoria stepped forward.
“He is three, Rocco.”
I did not look at her.
“Noah.”
My son wiped his cheek.
“Aunt Victoria said I go away after the party.”
The reception hall became completely silent.
My jaw tightened.
“Where?”
“The quiet house.”
Marcus closed his eyes.
There.
I looked toward him.
“What quiet house?”
He said nothing.
Noah continued.
“Uncle Marcus said Maria goes too.”
Maria went still beside him.
Victoria snapped:
“He misunderstood!”
Noah recoiled.
I stood.
“Lower your voice.”
She stopped.
Then Noah said the sentence that changed everything.
“They said when me and Maria go away, Daddy only hears them.”
I stared at my son.
Then at Marcus.
Not sees them.
Hears them.
Access.
Voices.
Information.
I understood the shape before I understood the details.
My fiancée controlled my home.
Marcus controlled part of my organization.
And somebody had been planning to remove the two people inside my house most likely to tell me what I was not being told.
I looked down at the pieces of Noah’s crushed hearing aid beneath Victoria’s heel.
May you like
She had not destroyed it because a child heard one embarrassing secret.
She destroyed it because the child had overheard the architecture of the entire plan.
