My father looked at the card again.
Then he said, “Bring the car.”
My mother’s head snapped toward him. “Jonathan.”
“They asked for the truth,” he said. “Then that is what they’ll get.”
“Who?” I demanded. “Celeste?”
My father’s jaw tightened. “Celeste is only the hand. Someone else is moving her.”
Mara pressed a cloth to her bleeding head. “Sir, we cannot take Evelyn into this.”
I stepped toward her, holding my two sons tighter. “You cannot keep me out of it.”
“You gave birth days ago,” Mara said.
“And someone just stole my newborn.”
The room fell silent.
My mother came to me and gently lifted Noah from my arm. “Then we go together.”
Outside, Ashford House burned with alarms and floodlights. Guards ran across the lawn. Dogs barked near the tree line. Somewhere beyond the walls, Samuel was being carried away from me, wrapped in a blanket that still smelled like home.
