Chapter 1 - THE MAN OUTSIDE THE DOOR
The three knocks were slow.
Deliberate.
Not the knock of someone asking to be invited inside.
The knock of someone who believed the door already belonged to him.
Elias Vance stood between me and the entrance.
His bodyguard, Marco, glanced toward the security monitor.
Then his expression changed.
"Boss."
Elias didn't move.
"Who?"
Marco turned the screen.
My husband stood in the hallway.
Victor Miller.
Dark coat.
Perfect hair.
No sign that only three nights earlier he'd ordered his men to beat his wife hours after she delivered his children.
Behind him stood four men.
My stomach twisted.
"He found us."
Elias looked at me.
"No."
His voice was calm.
"He found me."
One of my daughters cried from the adjoining room.
Victor heard it.
His face changed.
Then he knocked again.
"Elias."
Not Mr. Vance.
Not sir.
Elias.
They knew each other.
I stared.
"You know him?"
Elias's jaw tightened.
"Unfortunately."
He unlocked only the first security barrier and spoke through the intercom.
"What do you want?"
Victor smiled toward the camera.
"My wife."
I felt sick.
Elias's expression remained unreadable.
"And the children?"
Victor's smile disappeared.
"I don't care about the girls."
My chest tightened.
Even after everything, hearing him say it aloud hurt.
Elias looked toward me.
Then back at the monitor.
"Then leave."
Victor stepped closer.
"You don't understand what she has."
I froze.
Elias noticed.
"What does she have?"
Victor's eyes moved toward the camera.
"Something that belongs to my family."
I shook my head.
"I don't have anything."
Elias raised one hand.
He believed me.
Or at least he wasn't letting Victor control the room.
Victor laughed softly.
"Ask Ava about the necklace."
My hand immediately rose to my throat.
A thin gold chain rested beneath the borrowed sweater Elias's housekeeper had given me.
At the end hung a small oval locket.
My mother's.
The only thing I'd carried when Victor's men threw me beneath the overpass.
Elias looked at it.
Then his face changed.
Not recognition.
Shock.
"Where did you get that?"
"My mother."
He stepped closer.
"Open it."
I frowned.
"It doesn't open."
"It does."
My pulse quickened.
I'd worn the locket since I was sixteen.
Mom had given it to me before she died.
Elias took a small knife from the desk and carefully pressed the edge against a nearly invisible seam.
The locket opened.
Inside was a folded piece of paper.
And a tiny black key.
My hands started shaking.
"What is that?"
Elias unfolded the paper.
The moment he saw the handwriting, he went completely still.
Then he whispered:
"Your mother's name."
I swallowed.
"Margaret Miller."
Elias looked at me.
"No."
My blood ran cold.
"Then what?"
He turned the paper around.
Across the top was written:
Margaret Vance.
I stared.
May you like
Elias's voice became almost inaudible.
"That was my sister's name."
