Chapter 2
The heavy silk curtains framing the dining gallery seemed to absorb the suffocating tension radiating from Mina as she approached the console near the head table. Her footsteps were virtually silent on the thick carpet, her slender, graceful proportions moving with a practiced, mechanical efficiency. She carried a fresh vase of white roses, her knuckles turning white as she gripped the cool glass.
"Make sure the arrangements near the fireplace are perfectly symmetrical, Mina," the head butler murmured as she passed him.
"I will take care of it immediately," Mina whispered, her American accent trembling slightly beneath her breath.
To keep herself from breaking down in the middle of the crowded engagement dinner, Mina began to hum. It was a soft, barely audible melody—a lullaby she used to sing to Owen every night before he was taken from her. The familiar tune grounded her, a desperate, invisible tether to the child she missed with every fiber of her being. She approached the console, carefully adjusting the white roses beneath the soft supplementary lighting that clearly revealed every face in the room.
The console sat directly beside a large, polished walnut bookcase. As Mina hummed softly while placing the flowers on the console, a faint, rolling sound caught her attention.
From a narrow gap beneath the adjoining bookcase, a small object slid across the polished hardwood floor. It bumped gently against the toe of Mina's black shoe.
Mina stopped humming instantly. Her heart leaped into her throat, hammering violently against her ribs. She looked down. Resting against her shoe was a small, scuffed, die-cast toy car. It was unmistakably Owen’s—his absolute favorite toy, the one he had been holding the day he disappeared.
Mina’s fingers became completely still against the glass vase. All the blood drained from her fair, rosy cheeks, leaving her looking as pale as the porcelain on the dining tables. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't move. The realization that her son was somewhere behind the woodwork of this very room was a shock so profound it paralyzed her.
Alden, whose cold, perceptive eyes missed absolutely nothing in his domain, noticed the sharp, devastating change in the housemaid’s posture. He watched the way her slender shoulders stiffened and how her hands froze against the flowers.
Moving with a deliberate, predatory grace, Alden stepped away from his velvet dining chair. He crossed the short distance and moved smoothly beside Mina, bringing his imposing, masculine frame close to her trembling silhouette. He looked down at the toy car, then slowly lifted his gaze to meet Mina’s terrified eyes.
"Mina. Why did you stop?"
Alden’s voice stayed low and deliberate, vibrating with a chilling, measured pause. The sheer, commanding authority in his tone sliced through the ambient chatter of the room like a straight razor.
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The effect was instantaneous and absolute. Every single guest at the long tables stopped eating and speaking. Forks hovered motionless over fine porcelain. Crystal wine glasses were lowered slowly. Dozens of fair, rosy-cheeked faces turned toward the head of the room, watching the mafia boss direct his terrifying, unbroken focus onto the housemaid.
Mina swallowed hard, her eyes darting frantically from Alden's movie-star handsome face to the narrow gap beneath the bookcase. She knew Juliana was watching her. She knew the danger she was in. But the maternal instinct burning in her chest obliterated all fear of the mafia boss or his fiancée. She dropped her gaze, her eyes searching the edge of the heavy walnut woodwork until she located a small, concealed brass latch securing the outer edge.
