Chapter 1 - THE FIRST SLICE
The first piece of my son's eighth birthday cake never reached his mouth.
A three-year-old girl ran across my ballroom, slapped the plate out of Ethan's hands, and sent frosting and porcelain across the marble floor.
Then Lily Carter looked straight at me and whispered, "I couldn't let him eat it."
One hundred guests stopped breathing.
The quartet died in the middle of a note.
Sophia Carter, my head housekeeper, rushed from the service entrance.
"Lily!"
She dropped beside her daughter.
"Baby, what did you do?"
People noticed when I moved. They always had.
I was thinking about my son.
"Why did you knock it down?"
Sophia whispered, "Tell Mr. Moretti you're sorry."
"I couldn't let Ethan eat it."
Something cold moved through my chest.
"Why?"
She pointed toward the service hallway.
"There was a man in the cold room."
My security chief, Vincent Hale, stopped near the ballroom doors.
"What man?" I asked.
"He touched Ethan's cake."
"How?"
"He had a little silver box. He opened it and put white stuff in the frosting."
Ethan's fork slipped from his hand.
My family physician, Dr. Harris, was already moving.
Ethan had a severe food allergy. The wrong ingredient could close his airway in minutes.
His cake had been prepared under strict controls.
Separate tools.
Checked ingredients.
Limited access.
No exceptions.
Dr. Harris collected a sample from the broken slice.
"Nobody touch anything."
"Lock the estate."
"Dominic—"
"Nobody leaves."
Three minutes later, Dr. Harris looked up.
His face had lost its color.
"Positive."
"Positive for what?"
I put my hand on his shoulder.
Dr. Harris lowered his voice.
"A concentrated form of his allergen."
My pulse slowed.
That was what fear did to me.
It made everything sharp.
"How dangerous?"
"If he'd swallowed that bite, we would have had seconds."
Three years old.
One sneaker untied.
She had seen what my staff, my guards, and I had missed.
Then Vincent came back from the security room.
His expression told me the night had just become worse.
"The cold-room camera is blank."
"Broken?"
"Deleted."
May you like
"By who?"
"Someone using my administrator code."
