Chapter 1
“You wanted the birthday memorable…”
I pulled Gavin upright by the collar.
Frosting covered his face, crushed sugar towers clung to his expensive coat, and one broken castle window slid from his shoulder onto the floor.
“I’ll make sure you never forget today.”
Nobody laughed.
Ella stood behind me, still wiping frosting from one eye.
Then my father struck his signet ring against the table again.
“Enough.”
I released Gavin.
Arthur Whitlock looked at me as though I were the embarrassment.
Not the thirty-seven-year-old man who had shoved a four-year-old child face-first into her birthday cake.
Me.
“You will apologize.”
I stared at him.
“For stopping him?”
“For humiliating your brother in front of family.”
Ella’s fingers closed around the back of my jacket.
I felt them.
That was enough.
Gavin wiped frosting from his mouth and smiled.
He thought Arthur had already won the argument for him.
That smile told me this was not new.
Maybe the cake was.
The confidence was not.
I looked around the birthday table.
My cousins.
Two capos.
Three older Whitlock relatives.
Nobody looked surprised by Arthur’s demand.
Interesting.
Then Ella’s tiny smartphone vibrated on the table.
The screen was cracked slightly from falling against the cake board.
A birthday recording was still running.
Ella had wanted to film herself making her wish.
Instead, the phone had captured everything.
Gavin’s shove.
Arthur’s ultimatum.
My daughter crying.
I picked it up.
Arthur’s expression changed.
Small.
But I saw it.
“What?”
He looked away.
I stopped the recording.
Then noticed something strange.
It had started almost twelve minutes before Ella approached the cake.
Ella must have pressed the button early.
My father stared at the phone again.
Too long.
I looked at him.
“What happened twelve minutes before the cake?”
His jaw tightened.
“Nothing.”
Gavin stopped wiping frosting.
There.
Two reactions.
One question.
I placed the phone inside my jacket.
Then looked at the room.
“Nobody leaves.”
Arthur laughed.
“This is a child’s birthday, Lucas.”
“No.”
I looked at Ella.
“It was.”
May you like
Then I turned back to my father.
“Now I want to know why the two of you are afraid of what her phone heard before Gavin touched her.”
