Vanessa’s POV

Vanessa knew something had changed the moment the house went completely quiet, not the ordinary quiet of a mansion settling into the night, not the polite hush that followed dinner or the soft retreat of maids to the servants’ quarters. This was different, this silence was sharp and deliberate, the kind that announced the presence of a change.

She was seated in her room, Jayson asleep in his crib beside the bed, when she felt the shift. She looked up from her phone slowly, ...