Chapter 1 - The Emerald Grip
The venom in Genevieve’s eyes burned colder than the winter draft whistling through the corridor wainscoting. Her lacquered fingernails dug into the soft flesh of Caleb’s jawline until a thin prick of crimson welled against the pale skin. Eight-year-old Chloe let out a muffled shriek, burying her face into the scratchy knit wool of Caleb’s navy sweater. Every instinct in Caleb’s fifteen-year-old body screamed at him to strike back, to shatter the crystal decanter in her raised hand, but the grotesque revelation hung between them like a guillotine blade. Clara was not buried beneath the polished marble tombstone in the family plot. She was trapped in the subterranean dark beneath their very feet.
“Look at you,” Genevieve whispered, her voice dropping into a melodic, terrifying purr. “So brave. So hopelessly foolish. You have your mother’s pathetic, sentimental eyes, Caleb. And look where those eyes landed her.” She released his jaw with a disdainful shove, smoothing the shimmering emerald folds of her silk dress as if she had just brushed away unsightly lint. “You will take your sister to the nursery wing. You will lock the double doors from the inside. If I hear so much as a creak from the floorboards before morning, the ventilation grate in the sub-cellar stays shut for forty-eight hours. Do you understand what forty-eight hours of stagnant air does to lungs already scarred by smoke?”
A cold sweat broke across Caleb’s collarbone. The conservatory fire eighteen months ago hadn't been an accident that ended in Clara's tragic cremation. It had been the theatrical staging of a burial, a smokescreen engineered to erase a living woman from the world of the living. He took a slow, calculated step backward, wrapping his left arm securely around Chloe’s trembling shoulders while keeping his gaze locked on the predator standing beneath the chandelier. “Don’t touch her,” Caleb said, his voice dropping an octave, steadying despite the adrenaline flooding his veins. “Don’t you dare go down there.”
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Genevieve’s lips curved into a cruel, painted smile. “Then obey, little master of Oakhaven. The servants take their orders from the checkbook, and the checkbook belongs to me.” She turned on her stiletto heels, her gown rustling with a dry, snake-like hiss as she vanished into the shadow of the grand gallery.
Caleb didn't waste a second. He scooped Chloe into his arms, ignoring the fierce burn in his ribs, and hurried down the dim hallway toward the nursery. The heavy oak door clicked shut, but instead of weeping, Caleb dropped to his knees in front of his sister. He wiped the tears from her red cheeks, staring directly into her wide, terrified brown eyes. “Chloe, listen to me very carefully. You weren't imagining the tapping in the library. Mommy is alive. She is right below us.” Chloe’s breath hitched, a fragile spark of hope battling the sheer horror in her gaze. “Is Daddy coming to save her?” she whispered. Caleb swallowed the bitter lump of bile rising in his throat, thinking of the concrete foundation blueprints he had seen months ago. “No,” Caleb answered softly, his jaw set like iron. “We are.”
