I walked into Elena’s father’s office quietly, closing the door behind me so the latch did not echo down the hallway. The house was unusually silent for a Saturday evening. Victoria was out with her friends, Mary was pretending to “rest” upstairs, which usually meant sulking, and the only real sign of life came from the soft scratch of a pen behind the giant oak desk.

Harry sat hunched over a stack of papers spread across the surface like a battlefield. His expression was tight, jaw ...