Chapter 1
“Who was waiting beneath that door?”
Victor’s face changed.
That was all I needed.
Milo clung to Clara behind two of my bodyguards. His face was wet, his cardigan twisted where Victor had shoved him into the escape cabinet.
Teresa remained tangled among fallen capes and scarves.
I looked down again.
The trapdoor was open less than an inch.
Enough to show darkness beneath the stage.
Not enough to see who was inside.
“Open it.”
Victor struggled upright.
“Julian, don’t.”
I looked at him.
Wrong sentence.
One of my guards lifted the trapdoor.
A narrow service stair descended beneath the performance hall.
At the bottom stood a man holding a child-sized winter coat.
Beside him rested a small suitcase.
Milo’s initials were stitched into the luggage tag.
M.M.
The man looked up at me.
Then dropped the coat.
My voice became quieter.
“Bring him up.”
The guards moved.
Teresa suddenly shouted:
“He doesn’t know anything!”
Interesting.
I turned toward her.
“You knew he was there.”
Silence.
Clara pressed closer to Milo.
I crouched beside her.
“How did you know they were staging a kidnapping?”
Teresa snapped:
“Do not question her.”
I looked at my aunt.
“You lost the right to decide who speaks when you held my daughter back from saving her brother.”
Then I turned to Clara again.
Her hands were shaking.
“I heard Aunt Teresa tell Victor the cabinet had to reach the trapdoor before Dad came back.”
My jaw tightened.
“What else?”
Clara looked toward the man being dragged up the stairs.
“She said the driver was already waiting.”
The man reached stage level.
I recognized him.
Daniel Cross.
One of Victor’s private chauffeurs.
Not mine.
“Where were you taking my son?”
He looked at Victor.
Victor looked at Teresa.
Nobody looked at me.
That told me the chain already.
Then Daniel whispered:
“Blackthorne.”
My body went still.
Blackthorne Estate.
An old Marzano property three hours north.
Closed for twelve years.
The place where my father once sent family members who needed to “disappear from public view.”
I looked at Victor.
May you like
This was not a kidnapping improvised behind a magic trick.
Someone had reopened one of my family’s oldest hidden houses for my four-year-old son.
