Alan
The streets were eerily quiet as I drove, my hands gripping the wheel with a tension that made my knuckles white. Every stoplight, every shadowed alley, every flicker of movement made my heart jump. But it wasn’t fear alone.
I knew Cyril was out there somewhere, and the thought of her being in someone else’s control, of her being hurt… it was unbearable.
I hadn’t even realized I’d been muttering her name under my breath until the emptiness of the Vance manor hit me all at once. She wasn’t home, and Susan couldn’t give me any answers beyond the obvious. My mind refused to sit still, racing through every possible scenario.
And then it hit me. Miller.
I could see it now—the little cracks in his behavior, the way he had planted doubts in Cyril’s mind, the manipulations that had guid
