CHAPTER 2: THE WOMAN IN BLACK
“Seal the palace,” the Duke of Wexford ordered.
His voice carried across the ballroom with the force of a gunshot.
The guards immediately surrounded the woman in black.
She raised both hands.
“This is a misunderstanding.”
Evelyn recognized her now.
“Cassandra Vale,” she said.
Cassandra forced a small smile.
She was the wife of Lord Marcus Vale, one of the Duke’s closest political advisers.
She had attended family dinners.
She had visited Evelyn after Oliver disappeared.
She had held Evelyn’s hands while pretending to cry.
“You knew my son?” Evelyn demanded.
Cassandra shook her head. “Of course not. The child is confused.”
The boy clung tighter to Evelyn.
“Her name is Aunt Cass,” he whispered.
A murmur spread through the guests.
Cassandra’s mask slipped for half a second.
“He is frightened and injured,” she said quickly. “He probably heard my name tonight.”
“I didn’t hear it tonight,” the boy said. “You made me call you that.”
Cassandra looked at him with such cold hatred that Evelyn instinctively placed her body between them.
The royal physician hurried through the crowd.
“We need to treat the child immediately.”
The boy panicked when the doctor approached.
“No hospital.”
“You’re bleeding,” Evelyn said gently.
“They’ll find me.”
“Who will find you?”
The boy looked around the ballroom as though the walls themselves were listening.
“The people from the house.”
The Duke stepped closer.
“What house?”
Before the boy could answer, the lights went out.
Darkness swallowed the ballroom.
Guests screamed.
Glass shattered.
Evelyn dropped to the floor, shielding the child beneath her body.
A hand grabbed the back of her gown.
Another hand reached for the boy.
He screamed.
Evelyn twisted and struck blindly.
A gunshot exploded somewhere near the staircase.
Then the emergency lights flickered on.
The ballroom glowed red.
Cassandra was gone.
One security guard lay unconscious beside an open service door.
And the boy was no longer in Evelyn’s arms.
“Oliver!” she screamed.
A weak voice answered from beneath the banquet table.
“Mom?”
Evelyn crawled toward him.
He had hidden himself the moment the stranger reached for him.
But beside him lay something that had not been there before.
May you like
A silver pendant engraved with the Ashbourne family crest.
The same pendant Oliver had been wearing on the day he disappeared
