Chapter 4
Tilda had never met her father.
Not really.
One photograph when she was five.
A Christmas card when she was seven.
Then nothing.
Her mother told her he had died.
Apparently he had not.
Sofia turned the photograph over again.
Her father's handwriting was unmistakable.
IF AVERY EVER RETURNS, DO NOT LET HIM NEAR MY DAUGHTER.
Grant looked bored.
Too bored.
“What does this have to do with me?”
Sofia looked at Tilda.
“Your father’s name?”
“Caleb Avery.”
Grant's jaw tightened.
There.
Sofia saw it.
“Do you know Caleb?”
“No.”
Tilda stared.
“You do.”
Grant laughed.
“Everyone knows someone.”
“You said his name once.”
Grant's expression changed.
Tilda stepped closer.
“Two months ago.”
“You were on the phone.”
Grant looked at Sofia.
“She's a housekeeper listening at doors now?”
Tilda's face reddened.
Grant smiled.
“Careful. Employees who forget their place usually lose it.”
Sofia's voice cut across the corridor.
“She has a place.”
Grant looked at her.
“Beside me.”
That shut him up.
Tilda continued.
“You said, ‘Caleb already opened the south route once.’”
Sofia looked at Grant.
“What south route?”
No answer.
Sofia knew one south route tied to her father.
Keats estate service tunnel.
Sealed after an attempted ambush eighteen years earlier.
She had been twelve.
Her father never discussed it.
He had doubled guards afterward.
Changed houses twice.
Then raised Sofia inside a world where paranoia was called parenting.
“What happened eighteen years ago?”
Tilda shook her head.
“I don't know.”
Grant smiled.
“I do.”
Sofia stared.
Of course he did.
He wanted the moment.
Power through information.
“What?”
Grant leaned against the wall.
“Your father wasn't attacked by rivals.”
Sofia waited.
“He was betrayed.”
“By Caleb?”
“Partly.”
Tilda’s face went white.
“Partly?”
Grant looked at her.
“Your father wasn't important enough to plan anything alone.”
Tilda’s jaw tightened.
Sofia stepped closer.
“Who?”
Grant smiled.
“You really don't know.”
He enjoyed it too much.
That meant the name mattered.
“Who?”
Grant looked toward the photograph.
“Your mother.”
Sofia did not move.
Her mother had died when Sofia was sixteen.
Illness.
Quietly.
No drama.
No open family war.
Grant watched her carefully.
Waiting for shock.
He got silence.
That annoyed him.
“You don't believe me.”
“I don't believe anything from a man who puts crackers in a bowl for his daughter and calls it parenting.”
Grant's face hardened.
Tilda looked away.
Sofia continued.
“But you'll keep talking because you need me to know you knew something I didn't.”
His jaw tightened.
She was right.
So Grant talked.
“Caleb Avery worked for your mother.”
Tilda closed her eyes.
“She wanted out.”
Sofia frowned.
“Out of what?”
“Your father's world.”
“My mother knew what she married.”
“She changed her mind after you were born.”
Sofia’s expression did not change.
Grant continued.
“She contacted Caleb.”
“They planned to take you.”
Tilda stared.
Sofia’s hands tightened slightly.
Grant smiled.
“Your father found out.”
“What happened?”
“He stopped them.”
“How?”
Grant shrugged.
“Caleb ran.”
“And my mother?”
“She stayed.”
Sofia looked at the photograph.
“Why would my father warn himself not to let Caleb near me?”
Grant laughed softly.
“He wasn't warning himself.”
Sofia froze.
The message.
IF AVERY EVER RETURNS, DO NOT LET HIM NEAR MY DAUGHTER.
Not a note to himself.
A note to someone else.
“Who found this photograph?”
Tilda answered.
“Inside the hidden compartment.”
Sofia looked toward the narrow child-sized space upstairs.
Her father had known about it.
Of course.
That compartment was older than Grant.
So Grant had not built the cage.
He had repurposed it.
That was somehow worse.
“Who was the message for?”
Grant said nothing.
Tilda looked at the photo again.
“Maybe whoever owned the house after him.”
Sofia’s father had transferred the property to her when she turned twenty-one.
Before that, it belonged to a holding trust controlled by his closest lieutenant.
A man who disappeared after her father's death.
Sofia remembered the name.
Victor Dane.
Grant's mentor.
The man who introduced Grant to the family.
Her eyes lifted.
Grant saw it.
“Finally.”
“You knew Victor had this.”
“He showed me.”
“When?”
“Before we married.”
Sofia stared.
Grant had entered her life with knowledge of the house.
Knowledge of her mother.
Knowledge of Caleb Avery.
Not coincidence.
Selection.
“You didn't meet me by accident.”
Grant smiled.
“No.”
Tilda whispered:
“Oh my God.”
Sofia’s voice went quiet.
“Why?”
Grant’s smile widened.
“Because Victor said one day you'd inherit everything your father hid.”
“And?”
“He thought marrying you would be easier than fighting you.”
Sofia almost laughed.
“Did he?”
Grant's face hardened.
“No.”
There.
Years of resentment in one word.
Sofia looked at the monitor.
The stolen device.
The external receiver.
Victor Dane.
“Victor is alive.”
Grant said nothing.
He didn't need to.
Tilda stared.
Sofia continued.
“You've been sending him security access.”
Silence.
“And hiding Elsie whenever he came here.”
Grant’s expression shifted.
Not quite.
Sofia caught it.
“No.”
She stepped closer.
“You weren't hiding Elsie from Victor.”
Grant said nothing.
“You were hiding Victor from Elsie.”
That landed.
Tilda inhaled sharply.
Sofia continued.
“Because she had seen him before.”
Elsie’s words returned.
Daddy's friends.
Men downstairs.
Sofia looked at Grant.
“How often has Victor been inside my house?”
Grant smiled.
Then said something he clearly meant as a threat.
“Often enough to know which room you'll run to when the alarms start.”
Sofia went still.
Grant's smile faded.
He had said too much.
The stolen security device wasn't only about access.
Victor had been studying Sofia's emergency behavior.
Her safe rooms.
Her routes.
Her reactions.
Someone had been preparing an attack.
May you like
Not someday.
Soon.
