The house was too quiet.
It wasn’t the calm of safety, but the silence of something coiled and waiting. Sierra felt it in every step she took down the polished hallway, her heels tapping too loudly on the marble floor. The night air was thick with tension, as though the walls themselves were holding their breath.
Vanessa had left earlier that evening for a private dinner with board members of one of her charities. Damien had retreated into his study, locked behind dark oak doors, the sound of his voice low and clipped when he answered calls. Sierra should have been relieved by their absence. Instead, she felt restless.
Caught. Always caught.
She sat at her desk with her sketchbook open, pencil in hand, but the page remained blank. Each line she tried to draw twisted into another rope,
