Chapter 1 - The Frame Hit the Floor
“YOUR FATHER ISN’T COMING BACK.”
The words hit eleven-year-old Ethan harder than the slap that knocked the photograph from his hands.
The wooden frame bounced once on the marble staircase.
Then it broke.
Ethan screamed.
“No!”
He lunged after it, but Vanessa caught his shoulder.
Her red nails dug through his shirt.
“Leave it.”
“That’s my dad!”
“It’s a picture.”
“It’s mine!”
Vanessa Hale stared down at him with the cold smile she used whenever the house staff was too far away to hear.
For three years, Ethan had carried that photograph everywhere.
To breakfast.
To school.
To bed.
Sometimes he whispered to it when he thought nobody was listening.
Sometimes he asked it questions.
When are you coming home?
Did you forget me?
Do you still love me?
Vanessa hated the picture.
Ethan knew that.
He just never understood why.
Until tonight.
She snatched it from his hands and threw it down the sweeping staircase of the Los Angeles mansion.
“Your father has movies, meetings, parties, people begging for his attention,” she said. “Do you really think Sylvester Stallone is sitting somewhere thinking about you?”
Ethan’s lower lip shook.
“He calls me.”
“When I allow it.”
The words came out before Vanessa could stop them.
Ethan stared at her.
“What?”
Vanessa’s face changed.
Only for half a second.
But Ethan saw it.
Fear.
Then the mask returned.
“I said he calls when he has time.”
“You said when you allow it.”
“Don’t talk back to me.”
Ethan pulled free and ran down the stairs.
The broken frame lay near the bottom step.
The glass had cracked straight across his father’s face.
Ethan dropped to his knees.
His fingers shook as he reached for it.
“Don’t touch the glass,” said a maid from the hallway.
Vanessa snapped her head around.
“Go back to the kitchen, Maria.”
Maria hesitated.
The older housekeeper looked from Vanessa to the boy.
“I said go.”
Maria disappeared.
Ethan lifted the photograph carefully.
His father stood beside him in the picture, one arm around Ethan’s shoulders.
Ethan had been maybe five.
He barely remembered that day.
He remembered sunlight.
A lake.
His father laughing.
And someone else.
Someone standing just beyond the edge of the photograph.
Ethan had always thought it was a shadow.
Tonight, for the first time, he wondered if it was a person.
Vanessa came down the stairs.
“You’re going to cut yourself.”
“Don’t touch it.”
“I’m trying to help.”
“You broke it!”
“It was an accident.”
“You threw it!”
Vanessa crouched in front of him.
Her voice dropped.
“Listen to me carefully.”
Ethan stopped breathing.
“That picture is old. Your father gave it to you because he felt guilty. That’s all.”
“You’re lying.”
Her smile disappeared.
“You have no idea what adults do to protect children.”
Before Ethan could answer, the front doors opened.
Both of them froze.
Cold night air swept through the entry hall.
A large man in a dark suit stepped inside.
Security.
Then another.
Vanessa rose slowly.
“No,” she whispered.
A familiar silhouette appeared beyond them.
Broad shoulders.
Dark jacket.
Gray at the temples.
Ethan forgot the broken glass in his hands.
“Dad?”
Sylvester Stallone stepped through the doors.
He looked tired.
Until he saw his son on the floor.
Then he became very still.
“Ethan.”
The boy stood so fast the photograph dropped again.
Stallone crossed the foyer in seconds.
“What happened?”
Ethan tried to speak, but his throat closed.
Vanessa reached them first.
“He slipped. The frame fell. I was just helping him.”
Stallone looked at her.
Then at Ethan.
“Is that true?”
Vanessa answered for him.
“He’s emotional tonight.”
Stallone didn’t look away from his son.
“Ethan.”
The boy’s eyes filled.
“Daddy…”
His voice broke.
“She did it.”
Silence swallowed the room.
Vanessa laughed softly.
“Kids exaggerate.”
Stallone bent down.
He picked up the broken photograph.
Then his brow tightened.
He ran one thumb over the wood.
“This isn’t the frame I bought.”
Vanessa went pale.
“What?”
“The frame.”
He turned it over.
“This is older.”
Ethan wiped his face.
“I’ve always had that one.”
“No,” Stallone said. “You haven’t.”
He pulled loose a cracked strip of wood.
Something shifted behind the photograph.
A folded piece of paper slipped out.
Vanessa moved.
Fast.
“Give me that.”
Stallone looked up.
The fear on her face was no longer hidden.
He unfolded the paper.
At the top were four typed words.
SYLVESTER STALLONE - CONFIDENTIAL.
His eyes moved down the page.
Then stopped.
“What the hell is this?”
Behind them, near the stone statue at the end of the foyer, something clicked.
May you like
A man stepped from the shadows.
And raised a gun.
