Chapter: CHAPTER 14: Fifty-One PercentWe found the note exactly where I had dropped it.That was the cruelest part. It was lying on the floor of Armani's empty office, face up, as if nobody had thought it mattered, as if whoever had cleared the room had been so certain of what was coming that they hadn't bothered to hide the proof. Finish it. No mistakes. Pamela's handwriting, slanting and elegant, underlined twice.Houston stood over it for a very long time."My mother," he said at last."I'm sorry." I meant it. I was surprised by how much. "Houston, I'm so sorry.""Don't." He bent, picked up the paper, and folded it once with great care, the way you fold something you are going to carry into a fire. "Don't apologize to me for her."Pamela was waiting in the drawing room, straight-backed in a gilt chair, a cup of tea going cold on the table at her elbow. She had put on pearls. Even now, she had put on pearls. When Houston set the folded note down on the tray in front of her, she looked at it for a moment as if it were an
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-10-13
Chapter: CHAPTER 14: The RecordHe did it twice. The same sigh, the same length, the same little catch at the end, down to the millisecond." My eyes opened. "People don't breathe the same way twice, Houston. Recordings do. That was Xander's voice. But it was built. Someone cut it together from things he'd already said."Theo looked up sharply. "A voice clone. Cheap ones are easy now. You'd just need a few hours of clean audio.""The gala," I said. "Every word he said into the microphone that night. The whole room recorded it."Houston said nothing. His hand came down flat on the desk, and I watched a hundred calculations run behind his eyes, each one worse than the last.Then the intercom on the wall crackled."Sir." It was the gate guard, and he sounded like a man trying very hard not to shout. "Sir, we have a visitor. He's alone. He's unarmed, we've searched him twice. He says he'll wait in the driveway all night if he has to." A breath. "It's Mr. Thorne."I have thought many times since about the way Houston move
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-10-13
Chapter: CHAPTER 13: The Voice on the LineCHAPTER THIRTEEN: The Voice on the Line"Hello, Brittany," Xander said. "Let's talk about how much you're willing to give up to get them back."For one second the room tilted so hard I thought the floor had opened. Houston's study, the dark mahogany desk, the whiskey he had never touched, the man standing a foot from me with his hands curled into fists at his sides. All of it slid sideways, and the only fixed point left in the world was that calm, pleasant voice in my ear."Where are my children?" I said. My own voice sounded like it belonged to someone else, someone small and far away."Safe. Warm. Perfectly comfortable." A soft, regretful sigh. "I'm not a monster, Brittany, whatever Houston has told you. Nobody is going to touch a hair on their heads, as long as everyone is sensible. And I do hope you'll be sensible. You were always the sensible one.""Let me hear them.""I'm afraid that isn't part of the arrangement.""Then there is no arrangement." I had no idea where the steel ca
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-10-13
Chapter: CHAPTER 13: The Voice on the LineCHAPTER THIRTEEN: The Voice on the Line"Hello, Brittany," Xander said. "Let's talk about how much you're willing to give up to get them back."For one second the room tilted so hard I thought the floor had opened. Houston's study, the dark mahogany desk, the whiskey he had never touched, the man standing a foot from me with his hands curled into fists at his sides. All of it slid sideways, and the only fixed point left in the world was that calm, pleasant voice in my ear."Where are my children?" I said. My own voice sounded like it belonged to someone else, someone small and far away."Safe. Warm. Perfectly comfortable." A soft, regretful sigh. "I'm not a monster, Brittany, whatever Houston has told you. Nobody is going to touch a hair on their heads, as long as everyone is sensible. And I do hope you'll be sensible. You were always the sensible one.""Let me hear them.""I'm afraid that isn't part of the arrangement.""Then there is no arrangement." I had no idea where the steel ca
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-10-13
Chapter: CHAPTER 12: GoneI don't remember climbing the stairs. I remember the note falling from my hand, forgotten, fluttering to the floor of Armani's empty office like something already dead. I remember the alarm, red and screaming, painting the hallway in pulses of light. I remember Talia's face when I reached the third floor, white, wrecked, her hands shaking as she pointed toward Noah's open door.The moon-shaped night-light was still glowing, soft and yellow, casting gentle light over three empty beds.The window was open. The screen had been cut, a neat, deliberate slice, the kind made by someone who'd done this before. On the sill sat a single crayon drawing, the one Leo had made weeks ago, the one Talia had brought to the gala, the one that read *WE LOVE YOU MOMMY* in careful four-year-old letters.Someone had drawn a line through it in black marker.I didn't scream. I wanted to. I opened my mouth and nothing came out at all, like the sound had been ripped straight out of my chest along with everythi
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-09-10
Chapter: CHAPTER 11: The Snake in the GardenI didn't sleep that night, and I didn't tell Houston about the message. Not yet. Not until I had something more than an anonymous number and a knot of dread sitting like a stone in my chest.I told Theo instead.He found me at dawn on the terrace, wrapped in a blanket I'd stolen from Noah's bed, watching the sun bleed orange over the hedges where I'd seen the shadow the day before. He didn't ask why I was awake. He simply sat beside me and waited, the way people do when they already suspect the answer will be heavy."Someone inside this house took that photo," I said finally. "Someone's been texting me. Warning me. About Armani."Theo's jaw tightened. "You trust whoever's texting you?""I don't trust anyone in this house," I said. "That's the problem.""Except Houston." It wasn't a question.I didn't answer that. I didn't know how to."Armani's been with my brother for six years," Theo said slowly. "Ex-military. Came with glowing references. But—" He hesitated. "There was a stretch, a
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-09-10
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