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.

His face went completely rigid. The color drained from his skin, leaving him looking like a marble statue carved by a madman. He didn't look at me; his entire focus was fixed on the drawing of the storm cloud and the single word written in his son’s handwriting.

“Noah,” Damian said, his voice dangerously low, stripped of all warmth.

Noah instantly dropped the colored pencil as if it were burning hot. He curled back into the beanbag chair, pulling his knees to his chest and burying his face against Captain Buttons’ worn-out head, trembling from head to toe.

Damian crossed the room in two giant strides. He snatched the sketchpad off the table, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the edges of the paper.

“Did you make him draw this?” Damian hissed, turning his blazing, storm-gray eyes down onto me.

“No,” I said, standing up slowly and placing myself between the table and Noah, shielding the boy instinctively. “He drew it on his own. He’s trying to communicate, Mr. Mercer. He’s terrified.”

“Don't tell me what my son is doing!” Damian roared, the sound echoing off the high ceiling with enough force to rattle the windowpanes.

“You are terrifying him!” I snapped back, throwing caution, fear, and Mrs. Whitmore’s warnings straight out the window. My voice rose, matching his intensity. “You walk around this house like a loaded gun ready to go off! You scream, you brood, you lock yourself in libraries, and you expect a five-year-old boy who watched his mother die to just magically snap out of his trauma? You can’t buy his voice with an empire, Damian! You can’t intimidate him into speaking!”

The entire room went dead silent.

Even the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway seemed to stop.

Nobody—not his hardened capos, not corrupt politicians, not fear-stricken business rivals—had ever spoken to Damian Mercer like that to his face.

Damian stared down at me, his chest heaving, his jaw clenched so hard I thought his teeth might shatter. For a terrifying second, I genuinely believed he was going to draw a weapon or throw me out the window.

Instead, his gaze slowly dropped from my defiant eyes down to the pink plastic cord still clutched in Noah’s tiny fist.

Damian’s expression shifted, a sudden, fleeting flash of profound, agonizing guilt crossing his features before he slammed the iron gates of his emotions shut once more.

“Get out,” Damian whispered, his voice dangerously controlled. “Leave the room. Now.”

I didn't argue. I gave Noah one last reassuring look, seeing the boy peeking out from behind his teddy bear with wide, wide eyes, and walked briskly past Damian toward the door.

That evening, a sealed white envelope was slipped under my basement door.