He had stopped crying.

That worried her.

Children usually cried when they were frightened.

Silence could mean something worse.

A paramedic met them at the house.

Within minutes, Leo's leg had been examined and wrapped. It wasn't broken, but the bruising was significant. He was dehydrated, cold, and exhausted.

“Hospital,” Willa said.

Adrian looked at the paramedic.

“Can he be treated here?”

The paramedic hesitated.

“He should be evaluated properly.”

Adrian nodded.

“Do it.”

Willa watched him.

“You changed your mind.”

“My son comes first.”

She studied his face.

“Good.”

He looked at her.

“You say that like you expected otherwise.”

“I didn't know what to expect.”

“That makes two of us.”

The paramedic left with instructions.

Leo fell asleep on the couch.

Willa sat nearby.

Adrian remained standing across the room.

The house was enormous.

Too quiet.

There were photographs everywhere, but almost none of Adrian himself.

Leo appeared in nearly every frame.

At the beach.

At Christmas.

On a horse.

In a kitchen wearing a chef's hat three sizes too large.

A child surrounded by evidence that someone loved him deeply.

Willa looked at Adrian.

“You were at the party.”

His eyes narrowed.

“What party?”

“The tuxedo.”

“Family dinner.”

“He wasn't dressed for a family dinner.”

Adrian said nothing.

Willa remembered the torn jacket.

The missing shoe.

The rain.

“Someone took him from somewhere.”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“I don't know yet.”

“You have a lot of people with guns and nobody knows?”

His jaw tightened.

“Apparently.”

Leo stirred.

Both of them looked at him.

For a moment, the tension disappeared.

Then Leo opened his eyes.

“Daddy?”

Adrian crossed the room.

“I'm here.”

“Willa stays?”

Adrian looked at her.

Willa expected him to refuse.

Instead, he said, “For tonight.”

Leo closed his eyes.

Within minutes, he was asleep again.

Willa noticed Adrian watching him.

“You're scared.”

His eyes shifted toward her.

“No.”

“You are.”

“You don't know me.”

“No.”

She lowered her voice.

“But I know what a man looks like when he's trying not to be scared.”

Something unreadable passed across his face.

“My wife died two years ago.”

Willa hadn't expected that.

“I'm sorry.”

“Cancer.”

He looked at Leo.

“After she died, he stopped speaking for almost six months.”

Willa's chest tightened.

“That must have been hard.”

“It was.”

His voice became quieter.

“He was the only thing in the world I had left that didn't belong to my business.”

Willa understood the sentence beneath the sentence.

Danger.

Enemies.

A life built around control.

She looked at Leo.

“Then someone knows that.”

Adrian's eyes met hers.

“That,” he said, “is what concerns me.”

At 4:38, Dominic, Adrian's head of security, entered the room.

“We found something.”

Adrian followed him into the study.

Willa remained with Leo.

Five minutes later, she heard Adrian's voice.

“Bring her in.”

She found him standing over a table covered with photographs.

The alley.

Blood.

Footprints.

A discarded black glove.

And a photograph of a black sedan parked across from Sal's Diner.

“When was this taken?”

“1:46.”

Adrian tapped the photograph.

“That's forty minutes before we found him.”

Willa studied the car.

“Could be anyone.”

“No.”

Adrian pointed to the windshield.

“A reflection.”

She leaned closer.

There was a faint image in the glass.

A second vehicle.

Black.

Large.

With a distinctive silver emblem on the hood.

Willa looked up.

“You know it?”

“Yes.”

His expression became hard.

“It's mine.”

The room went silent.

“What?”

“That car belongs to my security division.”

“Who drives it?”

Adrian didn't answer.

He didn't need to.

Someone inside his organization had been watching Leo.

Someone with access to his vehicles.

Someone who knew his movements.

Willa's eyes moved toward the photographs.

“Then your son wasn't abandoned.”

“No.”

“He was delivered.”

Adrian stared at her.

“Why would someone leave him in an alley?”

“To make you believe he'd been kidnapped by someone outside the family.”

Adrian's face darkened.

“Exactly.”

Willa looked at the sleeping child.

“What happens now?”

“Everyone in this house is staying here.”

“That sounds reassuring.”

“It isn't.”

The next hour passed in uneasy silence.

Then the lights went out.

Leo woke screaming.

Willa grabbed him.

“It's okay.”

A sharp sound came from the hallway.

A door slamming.

Adrian appeared almost instantly.

“Stay here.”

He disappeared.

Willa held Leo close.

The emergency lights flickered on.

Then she saw it.

A shadow moving past the nursery doorway.

“Adrian!”

The shadow stopped.

Footsteps ran.

Adrian appeared at the far end of the hall.

“Don't move!”

The figure disappeared around the corner.

Several guards chased after him.

Willa locked the nursery door.

Leo was shaking.

“It's okay,” she whispered.

But she no longer believed it.

Someone had entered the house.

Someone had known exactly where Leo was.

And someone had tried again.

Adrian returned several minutes later.

His expression was colder than before.

“He got away.”

Willa looked at him.

“You need to find the traitor.”

“I know.”

“No.”

She shook her head.

“You need to find them before they get close to Leo again.”

Adrian stared at her.

“You're not afraid.”

“I am terrified.”

“Then why are you still here?”

Willa looked down at Leo.

“Because he is.”

Something softened in Adrian's eyes.

Only for a second.

Then Dominic appeared behind him.

“Boss.”

“What?”

“We checked the security logs.”

“And?”

“Someone used your private access code at 1:37 this morning.”

Adrian's expression changed.

“Whose?”

“Yours.”

Willa felt the air leave the room.

Only one person besides Adrian knew that code.

His attorney.

His closest adviser.

And his brother-in-law, Vincent.

Adrian said nothing.

Then Leo reached out from Willa's arms.

“Daddy.”

Adrian looked at his son.

The little boy's eyes were half-closed.

He whispered something.

Adrian stepped closer.

“What did you say?”

Leo pointed at Willa's wrist.

At the black marker stain left there from the phone number.

Then he whispered:

“Not him.”

Adrian froze.

“What?”

Leo's eyes closed.

“Not Daddy.”

Willa stared at Adrian.

He understood before she did.

Leo hadn't written the number on his arm.

Someone else had.

And whoever had written it had been close enough to him to know exactly who his father was.

Adrian turned toward Dominic.

“Wake everyone.”

“Boss?”

“Lock every door.”

He looked at Willa.

“Starting now, nobody enters this room without my permission.”

Willa nodded.

But as Adrian turned away, she noticed something.

A small smear of black ink on the cuff of his white shirt.

The same ink used for the number on Leo's arm.

Her eyes narrowed.

“Adrian.”

He stopped.

She pointed.

He looked down.

Neither of them spoke.

Then Adrian slowly removed his cufflink.

Beneath it was a tiny folded piece of paper.

He opened it.

Ten digits.

The same number.

Willa's stomach tightened.

Someone hadn't merely planted the number on Leo.

They had planted it on Adrian too.

A message.

A warning.

Or an invitation.

Adrian looked at her.

For the first time that night, the control left his face completely.

“They want me looking in the wrong direction.”

Willa looked toward the dark hallway.

“No.”

She shook her head.

“They want you looking everywhere except at home.”

A floorboard creaked outside the nursery.

Both of them turned.

The handle began to move.

Adrian stepped in front of Willa and Leo.

His hand went beneath his jacket.

The handle stopped.

Silence.

Then a woman's voice came through the door.

“Adrian?”

His eyes narrowed.

“Who is it?”

“It's me.”

His sister.

Elena.

“I need to speak with you.”

Adrian didn't open the door.

“Why?”

A pause.

Then Elena whispered:

“Because I know who took Leo.”

Willa looked at Adrian.

The silence between them became almost unbearable.

Adrian's hand remained beneath his jacket.

“Tell me.”

“I can't through the door.”

“Then you won't tell me.”

Another pause.

Elena's breathing sounded uneven.

Finally she said:

“Because if I tell you, he will know.”

Adrian's eyes hardened.

“Who?”

Elena's voice dropped to almost nothing.

“The man who has been sitting at your table for six years.”

The hallway went silent.

Willa looked at Adrian.

He looked back at her.

Neither needed to say what they were thinking.

The enemy wasn't outside the house.

He had never been outside.

He had been sitting at Adrian Moretti's table, eating his food, drinking his wine, shaking his hand, and waiting patiently for the right moment to destroy the only thing Adrian loved more than his empire.

Leo stirred against Willa's shoulder.

She tightened her arms around him.

Outside the door, Elena whispered one final sentence.

“Adrian, don't trust anyone.”

Then the lights went out again.