Chapter 1 - The Hand That Stopped the Whip
The riding crop never came down.
Lucas Sterling caught Camille’s wrist inches before the leather struck Nora Hale.
The entire ballroom froze.
“She ruined my dress!” Camille snapped.
Lucas looked at the young maid kneeling beside shattered champagne glasses, blood tracing the cut on her cheek.
“So you were going to beat her?”
“She’s a servant.”
“She’s a human being.”
Lucas helped Nora to her feet.
As she rose, a black-enamel pendant slipped from beneath her collar.
A tiny emerald glittered at its center.
Lucas went pale.
His mother, Evelyn Sterling, had worn that necklace every day until her mysterious death eighteen years earlier.
Camille noticed his reaction.
“She stole it!”
Nora immediately clutched the pendant.
“My mother gave it to me.”
“What was her name?” Lucas asked.
“Rose Hale.”
Across the ballroom, Harrison Sterling dropped his champagne glass.
Lucas saw recognition flash across his father’s face.
Nora continued.
“My mother worked here the night Evelyn Sterling died.”
Harrison slammed his cane against the marble.
“Enough!”
But Nora would not stop.
“My mother said Mrs. Sterling never left this house alive.”
The room went silent.
Then Nora opened the pendant.
Hidden behind the emerald was a tiny brass key.
Lucas stared.
“What does it open?”
“I don’t know.”
Harrison whispered before he could stop himself.
“I do.”
May you like
Two hundred guests heard him.
And for the first time in eighteen years, the Sterling family’s perfect story began to collapse.
