Chapter 1 - The Wooden Box
The silence in the dining room suddenly felt heavy enough to crush bone.
I slowly placed my silver fork down on the pristine white tablecloth.
My gaze remained entirely locked on the woman standing frozen near the mahogany doors.
Grace looked as though the air had just been violently stolen from her lungs.
I raised my hand and signaled to the two heavily armed guards standing in the shadows.
Go to the servant quarters and search her room.
Do not leave a single floorboard unchecked.
Grace took a terrified step forward, her hands shaking uncontrollably.
Please, Mr. Hale, you have to understand that I was only trying to protect her.
I did not answer her.
I simply looked down at little Amara, who was happily eating her dinner roll, completely oblivious to the deadly tension she had just created.
Ten agonizing minutes passed in absolute, suffocating silence.
My lead guard, a giant of a man named Marcus, returned holding a small, weathered wooden box.
He placed it carefully onto the dining table directly in front of me.
I popped the rusted brass latch and opened the lid.
Inside rested a single, crumpled photograph and a cheap, plastic burner phone.
I picked up the photograph and felt the blood completely drain from my face.
It was a picture of my daughter, Mia, wearing the exact pink dress she had died in two years ago.
But she was not dead in this photograph.
She was asleep in the back seat of a rusted sedan, and the woman driving the car was Grace.
Before I could demand an explanation, the plastic burner phone inside the box began to ring.
I picked it up and pressed the speaker button.
A woman’s voice echoed through the massive dining room, desperate and weeping.
Grace, you have to take Amara and run right now.
I recognized that voice instantly, even after two years of grieving her supposed death.
It was my wife, Elena, and she was absolutely terrified.
May you like
They found us, Julian, she sobbed through the speaker.
And they are coming to your house to kill you all.
