Chapter 1 - THE CHAIN ON MY ANKLE
"Get this nobody out of my resort."
Vanessa Bellmont said it while holding the chain locked around my ankle.
Two guards dragged me across the marble lobby.
Barefoot.
Bleeding.
My blouse was torn at the shoulder, and every pull drove the metal deeper into the skin above my heel.
"I run this place."
I reached inside my jacket.
"Don't."
"Then you should pray she knows what this is."
Inside lay an old gold medallion.
A sun.
Two initials.
A.B.
"What the hell is that?"
I crawled toward the black reader beside the private elevator.
Vanessa shouted, "Stop her!"
I struck the medallion against the reader.
BEEP.
FOUNDER PROTOCOL.
PRIMARY AUTHORITY RECOGNIZED.
Every security door in the lobby locked at once.
CLANG.
"This resort is mine."
Ethan Ward, head of Corporate Security, stepped out with four armed officers behind him.
Then the color drained from him.
"Welcome back, Ms. Bellmont."
"All of us thought you were dead."
The world had buried Amelia Bellmont.
My niece took my name off the founder wall.
But Ethan did not look shocked enough.
"Did everyone think I was dead, Ethan?"
"No."
"Who knew?"
May you like
Then he said the name that made my knees weaker than the chain ever had.
"Your brother."
