Chapter 1 - Three steps
Tilly fell three steps before I caught her.
Three.
I counted them later from the security footage.
The first knocked her sideways.
The second tore one flat from her foot.
The third would have sent her into the open center of the staircase if I had been two seconds farther away.
Instead, I caught her.
She made one small sound against my chest.
Not a scream.
A frightened breath.
“Daddy?”
“I’ve got you.”
Her arms locked around my neck.
I checked her head.
Her neck.
Her arms.
Her legs.
No blood.
No obvious deformity.
She was conscious.
Crying.
Terrified.
Behind me, people stopped speaking.
The Bellafonte Diamond Relief Gala had been designed to impress four hundred donors.
Crystal chandeliers.
Champagne towers.
An orchestra.
Enough diamonds in display cases to pay for several neighborhoods.
None of it mattered.
My daughter was shaking.
Then Clarissa Dane spoke from the top of the stairs.
“One spoiled brat won’t stop our deal.”
That sentence told me the kick had not been an accident.
I gave Tilly to Marcus Hale, head of my professional security detail.
“Doctor. Now.”
Then I climbed.
Clarissa did not move.
She looked almost pleased with herself.
I struck her once.
Open hand.
Hard.
She fell beside the sapphire-and-diamond centerpiece.
That was wrong.
Not because Clarissa deserved sympathy.
Because Tilly was already safe.
I had crossed from protection into punishment.
The distinction would matter later.
Clarissa pushed herself upright.
Touched her cheek.
And smiled.
“Hit me again, and I tell her who ordered her mother’s death.”
My body went cold.
My wife, Seraphina Bellafonte, had died three years earlier in what police classified as a targeted road attack connected to organized crime.
The shooter was never identified.
The order was never proved.
I had spent three years believing I would never know.
I stared at Clarissa.
May you like
“You just admitted you know.”
Her smile vanished.
