Chapter 7 - The Bloodline Test"Mom?"
A small, trembling voice drifted down from the landing.
Maya froze, pushing past Ethan and racing up the stairs two at a time. Ava was standing in the hallway rubbing her sleepy eyes, her oversized pajama shirt slipping off one shoulder. Through the open door of her bedroom, the window had been forced open from the outside, the curtains fluttering wildly in the midnight breeze.
"Ava, baby, are you okay?" Maya scooped her daughter into her arms, pressing her face against the little girl's curls.
"Someone was outside the glass," Ava whispered, her voice shaking with fear. "They were looking in."
Ethan appeared at the top of the stairs, his face instantly draining of all color as he scanned the room. Without a word, he strode past them, vaulted out the second-story window onto the flat roof of the patio below, and dropped silently into the yard.
Maya locked the bedroom door, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She grabbed her phone, dialing Liam Vance's emergency number on speed dial.
"Liam. Someone broke into my house. We need to leave—now."
Within fifteen minutes, the quiet suburban street was flashing with red and blue police lights. Officers swarmed the perimeter, while Liam stood in Maya’s kitchen, wrapping a protective arm around her shoulders while paramedics checked on a shaken but unharmed Ava.
Ethan walked back into the kitchen through the front door, his knuckles scraped and bleeding, a cold, lethal fury burning in his eyes.
"It was one of my mother’s private security contractors," Ethan said, dropping a heavy, engraved silver cufflink onto the kitchen island next to the manila folder. "He dropped this by the back fence before he booked it."
Maya looked at the cufflink, engraved with the Caldwell family crest.
She looked at Ethan, bleeding in her kitchen.
May you like
She looked at Ava, safely clutching a stuffed animal on the sofa.
The illusion of safety was gone. Eleanor had declared war.
