Chapter 1 - THE LOCKET THAT BROKE THE ROOM
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For several seconds, nobody moved.
Not the politicians.
Not the corporate donors.
Not the women whispering behind jeweled fans.
Not even Cassandra.
The entire ballroom seemed to have stopped breathing.
Dominic was still holding my silver locket.
His fingers trembled around the metal.
I had never seen a man like him tremble.
Not in the eight months I had worked at Sterling Manor.
Not when federal agents had arrived during a charity dinner.
Not when a rival syndicate had sent three armed men to the front gate.
Dominic Sterling was the kind of man people lowered their voices around.
Yet now he looked like a child standing over a grave.
“Where did your mother get this?”
His voice had changed.
It was no longer the voice of Boston's most feared patriarch.
It was the voice of a son.
I swallowed.
“She said it belonged to her mother.”
“Her mother's name?”
“Isabella.”
He went still.
Marcus, his chief of security, stepped closer.
“Boss…”
Dominic ignored him.
“Your mother was Lucia Thorne.”
“Yes.”
“Who raised you?”
“My mother.”
“Only your mother?”
I hesitated.
“No.”
Every eye in the ballroom fixed on me.
“My grandmother raised me after my mother died.”
Dominic's jaw tightened.
“What was your grandmother's name?”
“Rose Thorne.”
The color drained from his face.
Marcus whispered something to one of the guards.
Cassandra finally found her voice.
“Dominic, this is ridiculous.”
Nobody answered her.
“This girl is a maid,” Cassandra snapped. “She has probably stolen that necklace.”
I looked at her.
“I didn't.”
“You expect us to believe you?”
Dominic turned.
The look in his eyes silenced her instantly.
“Enough.”
Cassandra stepped closer.
“You're seriously entertaining this?”
Dominic looked at the locket.
Then at me.
“Take her to the west study.”
Cassandra's expression changed.
“Dominic—”
“Not you.”
“I'm your fiancée.”
“Exactly.”
His voice was ice.
“And until I understand why you knew this woman's name before anyone told you, you will remain here.”
Cassandra froze.
I noticed something then.
Her right hand was trembling.
Not because she was afraid of Dominic.
Because she was afraid of what he had realized.
Marcus approached me.
“Miss Thorne, please.”
I followed him.
As we crossed the ballroom, I heard whispers rising behind us.
“Impossible.”
“Lucia was supposed to be dead.”
“Could she really be Sophia?”
“Sophia Sterling?”
The name hit me.
Sophia.
It had always been my middle name.
My mother had insisted on it.
She used to say it was “the name of a little girl who belonged to a house with too many secrets.”
I had never understood.
Until tonight.
Inside the west study, Marcus locked the doors.
Dominic stood before an old portrait.
A woman in a cream-colored dress.
Dark hair.
Green eyes.
A baby in her arms.
I stared.
“That woman…”
“My mother,” Dominic said.
Then he pointed to the baby.
“My sister.”
I looked at the portrait.
The child wore a tiny silver pendant.
The same shape as mine.
My pulse raced.
Dominic turned toward me.
“What happened the night of the East Wing fire?”
“I don't know.”
He stared.
“My mother died years later.”
“What?”
“She survived the fire.”
Dominic's expression changed.
“That's impossible.”
“She told me she escaped Boston.”
“When?”
“Two days after the fire.”
“Where did she go?”
“Providence.”
Marcus suddenly stepped forward.
“Boss.”
He held a tablet.
“We found a problem.”
Dominic looked.
“What?”
Marcus showed him an old fire report.
Then he pointed at one line.
NO BODY RECOVERED FROM THE CHILD'S ROOM.
My stomach dropped.
Dominic read it twice.
“My sister's body was never found.”
He looked at me.
“So why did everyone believe she was dead?”
Marcus turned another page.
A handwritten witness statement.
Signed by the family's former estate manager.
It contained one sentence.
I was ordered to report the little girl dead.
Silence.
Dominic's face hardened.
“By whom?”
Marcus looked up.
“We don't know.”
Then the study lights flickered.
A phone rang.
Dominic answered.
Nobody spoke on the other end.
Only breathing.
Then a distorted voice whispered:
“Leave the girl where she is.”
The call ended.
Dominic stared at the phone.
I whispered:
“Who was that?”
May you like
He looked at me.
“The person who has spent twenty-eight years making sure you never came home.”
