Chapter 17 - A Trap in the Greenhouse
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Thunder rattled the tall glass windows of the library as an autumn storm broke violently over Manhattan, slashing sheets of freezing rain against the dark estate.
Damon immediately pulled a sleek tactical Glock from the biometric safe beneath his desk and shoved me behind his broad back. His cell phone screen lit up with an incoming emergency alert from his head of security at the front gatehouse.
"Boss, someone just cut the main power trunk line under the street and jammed our radio frequencies!" the guard’s voice crackled over the speaker before cutting to static. "We have movement near the east—"
The line went dead.
"Stay right behind me," Damon ordered in a lethal whisper, grabbing my hand as we moved swiftly out of the dark library toward the grand staircase to reach Evelyn and Sophie on the second floor.
Halfway down the marble corridor, the side glass door leading out to the estate’s sprawling Victorian greenhouse bangs open against the stone wall in the howling wind. Lying right on the wet threshold inside the hallway was Sophie’s stitched velvet elephant—soaked in rainwater.
My knees nearly buckled with sheer terror. "Sophie's elephant! Damon, why is it by the garden door?!"
Before Damon could answer, my phone chimed in my clutch with a text message from an unknown number. Attached was a grainy, flash-lit photo of the greenhouse interior showing a tiny silver party shoe lying beside the stone fountain, followed by three words: Come alone, maid.
"Wait here and check upstairs with Evelyn!" Damon commanded fiercely, raising his weapon toward the dark, rain-lashed courtyard. "It’s a trap to draw us out!"
"If there is even a one percent chance she has my daughter in that greenhouse, I’m not staying inside!" I cried, tearing my hand free the exact second two muzzle flashes erupted from the upper balcony of the east wing, pinning Damon behind a marble pillar as bullets chipped the stonework above his head.
"Elena, get down!" Damon roared, returning fire into the shadows of the stairwell to hold off the armed intruder blocking the hallway.
Using the cover of the gunfire and darkness, I sprinted out the open side door into the blinding rain, my silver gown instantly plastered to my legs as I raced across the cobblestone path toward the glowing glass dome of the greenhouse fifty yards away.
I burst through the heavy iron-framed glass doors, panting heavily as rain dripped from my hair. "Sophie! Camille, where is she?!"
The heavy iron latch slammed shut behind me from the inside.
Camille stepped out from behind a wall of giant tropical ferns, her scarlet gala dress ruined with mud and soot, holding a heavy silver revolver in one hand and a brass gasoline lantern in the other.
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There was no sign of Sophie anywhere—only an empty child’s shoe sitting beside the fountain.
"Your brat is still upstairs behind steel doors, you stupid bitch," Camille laughed hysterically, her eyes wild and unhinged. "I just needed the spare shoe from the laundry room to make sure you ran straight into the furnace!"
