Mrs. Whitmore’s sharp eyes narrowed, boring into mine as if she could peel back my skin and read the desperate lies keeping me upright. The heavy silence of the sitting room felt vacuum-sealed.

Standing less than two feet away was a small boy.

He couldn't have weighed more than forty pounds. He wore an oversized cream-colored cashmere sweater that swallowed his hands, dark trousers, and scuffed leather shoes. But it wasn't his slight frame that froze the blood in my veins; it was his face.

He had Damian’s piercing, storm-gray eyes, but they were entirely hollow, stripped of all childish light. Clutched tightly against his chest with both hands was a battered, threadbare brown teddy bear with one button eye missing and a stitched-up ear.

Captain Buttons.

He was staring directly at the split lip I had gotten when Ray Maddox’s thug slammed me into the alley brick wall three nights ago.

Noah didn't blink. He raised one small, pale hand from beneath the sleeve of his sweater, his fingers trembling slightly, and extended his index finger toward my face. He stopped a millimeter away from the purple, swelling bruise on my lower lip, his gaze tracking the jagged split in my skin.

He’s examining the injury, my mind screamed, reverting instantly to my years of special education training. He’s recognizing trauma because he lives in it.

“Noah,” a sharp, icy voice cut through the cavernous foyer like a razor blade.

The boy flinched violently, pulling his hand back as if he’d been scorched by a flame.

Mrs. Whitmore materialized from the corridor, her face pale with horror. She hurried across the marble, practically throwing herself between the child and me. She grabbed Noah’s small shoulder with a grip that was far too rough for a grieving child, though she masked it instantly with a saccharine-sweet facade.

“Come along, Master Noah. Breakfast is waiting in the conservatory,” she crooned, shooting me a glare so venomous it could have melted glass.

Noah didn't look back at her. As she towed him away toward the rear of the mansion, his small head turned over his shoulder. His grey eyes locked onto mine one last time, filled with an ancient, unbearable sorrow that nearly brought me to my knees.

I stayed frozen on the marble floor for a long time after they disappeared.

Later that evening, while polishing the silver in the butler’s pantry, Mrs. Whitmore cornered me.

“I saw what happened in the foyer,” she hissed, her voice vibrating with suppressed fury. “You lingered. You allowed him to approach you.”

“I was scrubbing the floor, Mrs. Whitmore. I didn't invite him over.”

“Listen to me very carefully, Clara,” she leaned in close, her breath smelling faintly of peppermint. “Mr. Mercer is offering half his empire to whoever breaks that boy’s silence. Forty-two men have tried to win that prize by using psychologists, hypnotists, actors, and bribes. Some of them tried to manipulate the boy to get to Damian’s fortune. Do you know what Mr. Mercer did to the last man who tried to use Noah as leverage?”

I swallowed hard. “What?”

“He didn't kill him,” she whispered, a chilling smile touching her lips. “He bought every single debt the man owned, foreclosed on his family business, stripped him of his citizenship, and had him dropped off in the middle of the winter desert with the clothes on his back. If you have even an ounce of self-preservation, you will become invisible.”

“I don't care about his money or his empire,” I said quietly, meeting her gaze without flinching. “I just need to keep my job and pay my rent.”

“See that you do.”

That night, alone in my basement cell, I couldn't sleep. The image of Noah’s face—so strikingly similar to the ghosts that haunted my own dreams—kept replaying behind my eyelids. He had watched his mother die. He had watched life slip away from someone he loved while helpless adults scrambled around her.