Chapter 1
“What wasn’t my son supposed to hear?”
Tobias looked toward the guests.
I followed his eyes.
One man was moving toward the ballroom doors.
Malcolm Voss.
Fifty-seven.
Twenty-eight years with Westbrook.
My father trusted him.
I had trusted him too.
“Malcolm.”
He stopped.
Not because I raised my voice.
I never needed to.
Behind me, Ansel stood beside Rafe, my bodyguard, while the hearing aids rested safely in Rafe’s palm.
My son could not hear me clearly from that distance.
But he was watching my face.
Carefully.
He had become very good at watching faces.
I turned so he could see me.
“You’re safe.”
He nodded.
Then pointed at Malcolm.
My chest tightened.
“What?”
Ansel came closer.
His voice sounded different without the devices.
Less certain.
“He sits by Uncle Tobias when you call.”
Malcolm’s expression changed.
Tobias snapped:
“Enough.”
I looked at him.
That word would cost him.
Ansel continued.
“They think I can’t hear.”
I crouched.
“Could you?”
He touched one ear.
“Little.”
Then pointed at his eyes.
“And I watch.”
Lip-reading.
Of course.
His therapist had been teaching him for almost a year.
Tobias knew that.
Or should have.
“What did you see them say?”
Ansel looked toward Malcolm.
Then Tobias.
His forehead wrinkled while he remembered.
“After dessert…”
The room went silent.
“Aunt Cass goes first.”
Tobias went pale.
My sister Cassandra.
His wife.
I stood slowly.
“Goes where?”
Ansel shook his head.
Then remembered another phrase.
“No more Westbrook after tonight.”
Malcolm closed his eyes.
There.
Not business gossip.
Not something inappropriate for a child.
A plan.
Tonight’s dinner celebrated eighteen years since the Westbrook and Carrow branches ended their feud and joined under one family structure.
Tobias Carrow had apparently chosen the anniversary of that peace to end it.
May you like
And according to my six-year-old son—
my own sister was supposed to make the first move.
