Carter’s POV
The dining room didn’t look like a dining room anymore.
It looked like a battlefield waiting for blood.
The long oak table—once polished, elegant, meant for family dinners and arguments about curfews—was buried under blueprints of the mansion.
Every hallway. Every stairwell. Every balcony. Every window. Red circles marked blind spots. Yellow arrows showed patrol routes.
Handwritten notes crowded the margins in sharp, aggressive ink.
Camera feeds flickered across six different monitors dragged in from the security office.
Grainy black-and-white footage blinked between angles—driveway, east wing, west garden, Aubree’s hallway, Aubree’s window.
My eyes never left that one.
If I stared hard enough, maybe I could will the universe into keeping her safe.
Abel paced.
Ba
