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Then Nathaniel said: “She doesn’t have to be mine for me to care about her, Victoria.” The warmth in his voice when he mentioned Lily was something Victoria Hale had never been able to summon for herself. She stood in the doorway of the library, her perfectly manicured nails pressing into the palm of her hand until her skin turned ghostly white. / Chapter 4 / 8

Chapter 4 - THE LAST GIFT

The silence in the room became absolute. It felt as if the temperature in the ballroom had plummeted below zero.

Victoria froze. Her breath caught in her throat as she recognized the sapphire carousel. She had seen it featured in a photo on Nathaniel’s desk—the only photo he kept of his lost family.

“N-Nathaniel...” Victoria stammered, her voice suddenly trembling. “I... I didn’t know...”

Nathaniel did not answer immediately. He slowly knelt down, his tuxedo trousers pressing against the polished marble. His massive frame was completely rigid as his long fingers picked up the silver music box. A small tear had formed in the delicate mechanism, and a tiny, haunting melody began to play automatically, tintinnabulating softly through the frozen room.

It was a lullaby.

Nathaniel stood up slowly. When he turned his eyes toward Victoria, there was no anger in them. There was something far worse: total, absolute, unyielding coldness.

“You didn’t know,” Nathaniel said, his voice terrifyingly quiet.

“I thought it was just... just some cheap toy your staff bought!” Victoria clawed at her own throat, her confidence crumbling in real time. She looked around the room, desperate for support, but her high-society friends were looking at her with utter disgust. “Nathaniel, please! It was an accident!”

“This music box was the only thing recovered intact from the car crash six years ago,” Nathaniel said, each word hitting Victoria like a sledgehammer. “My daughter, June, died holding it. For six years, I could not bear to touch it. I kept it locked in a vault because every time I looked at it, I remembered death.”

Elena looked up, her tear-stained face pale with shock. She had no idea.

Nathaniel walked toward Elena and Lily. He stopped in front of the little girl, who was still trembling in her mother’s arms. Nathaniel gently wiped a tear from Lily’s tiny cheek with his thumb.

“Until Lily came into this house,” Nathaniel continued, his voice softening slightly as he looked at the child. “For three years, this house was a tomb. Lily brought light back into it. She reminded me that life goes on. I repaired this music box last week because I wanted June’s favorite song to belong to a little girl who gave me back my soul.”

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I stepped past the door frame, my leather shoes clicking softly against the linoleum floor.

I stepped past the door frame, my leather shoes clicking softly against...

The screech of the chopper’s rotor blades vibrated directly through the freezing slate beneath my spine. The blinding white vortex of snow kicked up by the downdraft burned my eyes, but I forced my lids open, locking my gaze onto the amber visor of the rescue specialist dropping out of the sky.

The screech of the chopper’s rotor blades vibrated directly through the...

Daniel stepped toward the bed, his polished leather shoes squeaking against the pristine hospital linoleum. He reached for the tray table, his fingers brushing the edge of the papers. His voice was low, coated in a practiced, corporate calm that made my stomach churn worse than the spiked blood pressure.

Daniel stepped toward the bed, his polished leather shoes squeaking agai...

Lily looked at the sapphire carousel in Nathaniel’s hand, then looked up at him with big, watery eyes. “Is it broken, Mr. Nate?”

“No, little butterfly,” Nathaniel whispered gently, placing the music box into Lily’s tiny hands. “It’s fixed. And it’s yours.”

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