Chapter 3
I sent Charlotte upstairs with Emma.
Charlotte refused at first.
“Daddy coming?”
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
I crouched.
“Always.”
Isabella scoffed.
“You see?”
I turned.
She smiled.
“She can't even walk upstairs without reassurance.”
My hands curled.
“She was locked inside a wall.”
“For disobedience.”
There it was.
Not shame.
Not apology.
Justification.
I looked at Emma.
“Take her.”
Emma nodded.
As they reached the stairs, Charlotte looked back.
“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“Bunny stays?”
I picked up the damaged rabbit.
“No.”
I handed it to her.
“Bunny goes with you.”
Isabella's face changed.
Good.
Emma took Charlotte upstairs.
I returned to the letters.
Marcus watched every page.
Too closely.
I opened another.
William,
Isabella knows about the east passage.
My eyes lifted.
Behind the gallery portrait was more than a hidden room.
The old Sterling estate contained narrow service passages built generations earlier.
Most had been sealed before I inherited the house.
The east one wasn't supposed to connect anywhere anymore.
I looked at the brass key on the floor.
“You have access.”
Isabella shrugged.
“You gave me house privileges.”
“Not to sealed rooms.”
Marcus laughed.
“Nothing is sealed in an old house.”
I unfolded more.
Vivian:
Someone is using the east passage after midnight.
I heard Marcus with a man I don't recognize.
He wears a silver wolf ring.
I stopped.
Silver wolf.
I knew the symbol.
Vale.
A rival crew my father spent fifteen years keeping outside Sterling territory.
I looked at Marcus.
“You were meeting Vales inside my house.”
He smiled.
“No.”
“You're very bad at that answer tonight.”
His face hardened.
“You think one frightened woman's letter proves anything?”
I stepped closer.
“She wasn't frightened enough to stop writing.”
“Look where that got her.”
Silence.
Marcus realized.
Too late.
I stared.
“What does that mean?”
He looked away.
Isabella jumped in.
“He means she's dead.”
“No.”
I stared at Marcus.
“He meant something else.”
Marcus shrugged.
“Believe whatever makes grief exciting again.”
I almost smiled.
“Still mocking my wife.”
“I'm tired of you turning her into a saint.”
His voice sharpened.
“Vivian interfered with things she didn't understand.”
“What things?”
He stopped.
Another slip.
I waited.
Nothing.
Then one of my older bodyguards entered.
“Boss.”
He carried a small metal plate.
“What?”
“Found inside the hidden room.”
The plate was old.
Stamped with a wolf crest.
Silver.
Marcus closed his eyes.
Isabella whispered:
“Damn it.”
I looked at both.
Neither bothered denying it anymore.
“Who came through my wall?”
Silence.
Then Emma's voice came from the upstairs landing.
“Boss…”
I turned.
She looked pale.
“What?”
“Charlotte said there was another man.”
Every person in the gallery went still.
“When?”
Emma swallowed.
“When Isabella locked her in there.”
My blood went cold.
“Tonight?”
Emma nodded.
“She said someone came through the dark side of the room and asked her the same question.”
I looked at Isabella.
“What man?”
She stared.
Emma continued.
“Charlotte said he wore a silver wolf ring.”
May you like
The Vale man wasn't part of something Vivian discovered two years ago.
He had been inside my house tonight.
