Chapter 4
The cake was not the first container.
That detail stayed with me.
Elena told me they had moved her between waterfront properties for almost two years.
Not continuously locked in one room.
Sometimes guest suites.
Sometimes storage apartments.
Always guarded.
Always told Micah would suffer if she ran.
“Did you believe them?”
She looked at me.
“At first?”
“Yes.”
Then she learned enough to know Silas needed Micah more than he wanted to hurt him.
That changed everything.
She began testing doors.
Listening.
Memorizing names.
The cake was transportation.
Not prison.
Silas planned to move Elena out of the venue while hundreds of guests were distracted by the waterfront gala.
A hollow display structure could pass through catering corridors without inspection.
Clever.
Ridiculous.
Effective.
Until Nora heard crying.
I looked at Tessa.
“How did she get inside?”
Tessa’s face went pale.
“I didn’t know.”
I believed her.
She had built the outer cake around a preassembled reinforced bottom display tier delivered that morning by Silas’s event crew.
She assumed it contained internal supports.
“When did you hear movement?”
“About twenty minutes before Nora came in.”
“Why didn’t you open it?”
“I was about to.”
Then Silas arrived.
Of course.
Nora had followed Tessa because she wanted to see the cake flowers.
That accident broke two years of planning.
I looked at my daughter.
She was sitting near Clara—no, there was no Clara. One of my trusted staff, Mrs. Bell—coloring on a napkin.
Four years old.
Oblivious to the fact that she had just found my dead sister.
Children do not know which moments are historic.
Good.
They should not have to.
Then Tessa added something.
“The tier arrived with two locks.”
I frowned.
“Where?”
“Inside the base.”
One had been cut already.
The second remained.
Why two?
Elena answered.
“Because Silas wasn’t the only person moving me tonight.”
I turned.
“Who else?”
May you like
Her voice became quieter.
“Someone inside your own security team.”
