Liam stood at the window of his private room, the shadows of the trees casting on the curtained windows of his room. His suit jacket hung across the back of a chair from the other night. His phone pressed to his ear.
"Tell me more about this incident we had while I was gone."
Victor's voice came through the speaker, clipped and professional. "Someone accessed the security archive. Physically. Not through the system."
Liam's jaw tightened. "Physically?"
"Yes, sir. They bypassed the digital locks entirely. Walked into the archive room, pulled the drives, and deleted two sixty minutes of footage and access records manually. I went to pull footage of the day to see if there was anything that was missed, and records were gone."
"Sixty minutes," Liam repeated the number like he was testing its weight. "From when?"
"Covers the night of the storm. The night the girls were drugged. The second is covering the hour in which we suspect the records had been broken into and accessed."
Liam closed his eyes. The storm. The blackout. The chaos. Someone had used the cover perfectly. "The backup system?"
"Disabled before the deletion. Whoever did this knew the layout. Knew where the failover was. Disconnected it cleanly."
He turned from the window, pacing slowly across the hardwood floor. His office chair sat empty. The lamp on his desk cast a warm glow across a stack of documents he hadn't touched. "That's not a random thief, Victor. That's someone who knows how we operate."
"That's what I'm telling you, sir. This was an inside job."
Liam stopped at his desk, picked up a pen, set it down again. The motion was controlled, deliberate. A release he didn't fully allow himself. "Who had access to the archive room during the storm?"
"That's the problem. The list is long. Cleaning staff has access to the region outside the servers. Delivery teams came and went before the roads closed. Security rotations changed during the blackout. Anyone with a badge and the right tools could have gotten close."
"Anyone with a badge and right tools," Liam repeated. His voice was flat. "And yet none of them were supposed to be in that corridor."
"No, sir. But the archive room door doesn't log physical key access. Only electronic. And the electronic logs show nothing because the system was already down."
Liam pinched the bridge of his nose. A headache was forming behind his eyes, the kind that came from anger he wouldn't let himself feel fully. "So we have a blind spot. A sixty-minute hole in our security, a disabled backup, and a list of suspects that includes all the staff."
"That's where we are."
"What else did they take?" Liam's voice was flat, controlled. "The archive room was a target, but if someone went that deep, they had a reason. Did they touch anything else? The delivery logs? The inventory system?"
He heard Victor's breathing shift — a beat of silence, the kind a man takes when he's already checked the answer before giving it. "I ran the full sweep this morning. Door sensors, cabinet locks, every log-in timestamp for the past forty-eight hours. Nothing else was breached. The archives are the only thing that got hit."
"So they came for that specifically." Liam turned the thought over. "They knew exactly where to go, exactly what to erase. That's not a panicked cleanup. That's a surgical strike."
"That's what I figured," Victor said. "Whoever it was, they had intel. They knew the storm would cover the noise, knew the security rotation, knew where the archive was and how to bypass the lock. This wasn't random."
Liam's jaw tightened. The room was still dark, still quiet, but the shape of the problem was clear now. Someone inside his operation had opened the door. The question was whether they had walked through it themselves or let someone else in.
"And the footage itself. What was on it?"
"Standard camera feeds. The security hut, the service stairwell, the hallway outside the archive. Nothing that would obviously single anyone out unless they were not supposed to be there — which is probably why they erased it."
Liam's mind turned. The security hut. The service stairwell. The archive was near the lower level, close to the delivery entrance. Anyone could have come through there during the chaos. Anyone with a badge, a uniform, and enough nerve to walk past a locked door that should have been locked.
Liam let the silence stretch. He could hear Victor's breathing on the other end, patient, waiting. The man had been with the family since before Liam was a young teen. He didn't fill the silence with excuses.
"I want you to work with Presley on this," Liam said finally. "Quietly. No announcements. No lockdowns that tip our hand."
"You want to smoke them out."
"I want to set a trap. If they're still inside — and they likely are, if they had the nerve to hit the archive — they'll try again. They'll need to. Whatever they erased was step one. I want to be prepared for step two."
"You want me to leave a door open."
"I want you to leave a door that looks open. Monitor it. Control it. When they walk through, you'll know."
Victor's voice was steady. "I can do that."
"Pull Presley in. He knows the house better than anyone. He'll notice things a security team might miss — a chair moved two inches, a drawer not quite closed, a dish that wasn't there before."
"Presley's good at that."
"He's observant. Use it."
Liam walked back to the window. The city glittered below, indifferent to the breach in his home. Somewhere out there, someone thought they'd gotten away with it. Thought they'd erased their tracks. Thought Liam Thorn was too distracted by the gala and the woman on his arm to notice.
They were wrong. Liam exhaled slowly.
"If someone can walk through my house without being seen, then this house isn't secure."
Victor didn't answer.
"I'm taking Elena away for a few days."
Victor didn't respond immediately. When he did, his voice was cautious. "Away from the manor?"
"Yes."
"Sir, with respect — if there's someone inside the house, leaving might not be—"
"I'm not leaving because I'm running," Liam cut in. "I'm leaving because I need her somewhere safe while you clean this up. The manor is compromised. I don't know how badly. Until I do, I'm not keeping her under a roof where someone erased evidence of their own movements."
"She's not involved in this."
"She was unconscious once because someone got inside my house. I'm not giving them another chance."
Another pause. Victor was weighing his words. "Does she know about any of this?"
"No." Liam's voice was flat. "And she won't. Not until I know who I'm dealing with."
"Sir—"
"I'm aware of the risks, Victor. If the person who hit the archive decides to escalate, I don't want her in the building or anywhere remotely close."
Victor let out a slow breath. "Where are you taking her?"
"Somewhere off the grid. A property the family doesn't use often. Somewhere with its own security that I can control."
Liam turned from the window, the rain streaking the glass behind him. "I want the Briar Rose ready to depart by dawn in two days. Full fuel tanks, stocked for a week."
Victor's jaw tightened. "The Briar Rose. That's been moored at the family docks for six months, sir. It will need to be checked over before—"
"Then start now. You have tonight." Liam's voice was flat, brooking no argument. "Nonperishables only. Medical kit. The standard and nothing that signals where we're going. I don't want anyone who looks at the supplies to know the destination."
"And you?"
"I'll handle my own bag. Just make sure the boat is ready, the engines silent, and the approach lane clear. If anyone's watching the manor, I want them thinking I'm driving north, not taking the water."
"I’ll inform Presley to have it prepped by tomorrow afternoon."
"Do it. Quietly. No one outside your team knows where I'm going."
"Understood."
Liam's thumb found the edge of his phone, tracing it. "In my absence, you and Presley run the operation. The trap. The investigation. I want updates twice daily. Encrypted."
"You'll have them."
"And Victor."
"Sir?”
"Don't let anyone know I'll be gone until we're already out the door."
A beat of silence. Then: "Understood."
Liam ended the call and set the phone down on the desk. The screen went dark. He stood there for a long moment, staring at his own reflection in the black glass, the city lights bleeding through like ghosts.
Someone was inside his house. Someone had walked through his security like it was a suggestion, not a wall. Someone had erased an hour of his past, and he didn't know why.
Liam had spent years ensuring no one knew where to hurt him. His businesses, his security, his reputation—every piece of his life had been carefully constructed to eliminate vulnerabilities before they could be exploited. It was a discipline ingrained over decades, one that had kept both him as the last of the Thorn family alive.
He thought about the photograph Presley had shown him. The one from the gala. The way she'd looked at the camera, half-startled, half-defiant. The way his hand had rested on her back, proprietary and protective. The headline: Thorn Heir Spotted with Mystery Woman at Charity Gala.
Elena had never asked to be part of his world. The contract, the scrutiny, the dangers attached to the Thorn name—none of it had been hers to choose. Yet somewhere between the negotiations, the gala, and the chaos of the last few days, she'd become more than a responsibility. That realization came with an uncomfortable truth: if someone had breached his home, then keeping her at the manor was no longer protection. It was a risk.
He picked up the phone again, scrolled to Presley's contact, and typed a short message: Victor will brief you. We're setting a trap. I'll be gone a few days. Maintain normal operations. Don't tip the staff.
He hit send before he could second-guess the phrasing.
Then he turned from the window, crossed the room, and opened the door to the hallway.
He pulled the door closed behind him and turned left, away from the main hallway, toward the servants' wing. The carpet gave way to hardwood under his feet, the walls narrowing,
Working his way down the set of stairs at the back of the wing, he entered the garage. A large space taking up the entire manors basement below. Multiple cars parked inside, all of which he ignored as he worked his way to the back.
He passed the gym setup near the door he needed. Weight rack, a heavy bag suspended from a reinforced beam, a rowing machine folded against the wall. He didn't slow. The door at the far end was steel, painted to match the wall, with a recessed handle and a lock he knew by touch.
He keyed the code. The lock clicked. The door swung open onto a narrow staircase, concrete steps descending into Low light.
The steel door sealed shut behind him with a muted thud, cutting off the distant sounds of the manor above. The quiet that followed felt heavier than the silence of the halls outside, as though the room itself had been designed to keep secrets rather than store them.
The archive room greeted Liam with a controlled, artificial stillness. It was not complete silence. A faint mechanical hum lingered beneath the floor, produced by the cooling systems hidden somewhere behind the walls. Every so often, one of the servers would awaken with a soft rhythmic click before settling back into its endless cycle. Rows of server racks stretched across the length of the room, each one enclosed behind smoked glass and illuminated by tiny green and amber lights that blinked with mechanical precision.
The air carried the familiar scent of electronics, dust, and recycled cold air. It reminded Liam less of an archive and more of a bank vault.
In many ways, that was exactly what it was.
Everything Thorn Holdings considered valuable eventually found its way here. Security recordings, private communications, delivery manifests, financial records, surveillance logs—years of information carefully organized and locked away behind layers of protection. It was the memory of the organization, a place where every decision, every mistake, and every secret could be preserved.
Years of insurance.
Years of secrets.
Liam walked slowly between the rows of equipment, his polished shoes making barely a sound against the sealed concrete floor. His eyes moved over every detail as he passed. The room appeared untouched at first glance.
No open drawers.
No misplaced storage containers.
No damaged equipment.
No signs of forced entry.
Whoever had entered this room had not come searching.
They had known exactly what they wanted.
That realization bothered him more than the missing data itself.
He stopped in front of one particular server rack, his attention immediately drawn to the empty space in the center. One drive bay sat vacant while every surrounding compartment remained perfectly aligned, almost as if the missing cartridge had never been there at all.
Liam reached out, running two fingers lightly along the edge of the opening.
No scratches.
No chipped paint.
No bent locking mechanism.
The drive had not been pulled free in a hurry. It had not been damaged or forced out.
It had been removed carefully.
Deliberately.
With the kind of precision one would expect from a surgeon making a calculated incision.
His gaze lowered to the label beneath the empty slot.
Storm Archive — Security Block C.
Sixty minutes.
An entire hour of footage had disappeared as though it had never existed.
Liam stared at his reflection in the smoked glass surrounding the rack. Whoever had taken the drive had not acted out of desperation. They had made a choice. They had decided that those sixty minutes were worth the risk of entering one of the most secure rooms in Thorn Holdings.
The question was why.
He stepped back, allowing his eyes to scan the room once more.
Something about it bothered him.
It was too clean.
Security rooms were never this perfect. Even the most carefully maintained systems showed evidence of constant use. Fingerprints on glass. Slight shifts in equipment. Dust disturbed around frequently accessed areas.
Here, there was nothing.
Every surface that had been touched had been wiped clean.
His attention shifted toward the backup server positioned against the far wall. Unlike the primary archive racks, this system was rarely accessed. It existed for one purpose: preserving information that could not be lost.
Liam crouched beside it, studying the front panel.
At first glance, everything appeared untouched.
But first glances were often where people made mistakes.
He ran his fingertip along the seam of the panel and immediately felt the difference. A thin, clean line interrupted the faint layer of dust surrounding it.
Someone had opened it recently. He released the latch, and the panel swung outward with a quiet click.
Inside, every cable sat exactly where it belonged. Too clean and exact.
Liam stared at the connections for several moments before reaching forward. The placement looked natural, but the evidence was in the dust. A faint impression remained where the cable had previously rested, no longer matching its current position.
Someone had disconnected the data cable. They had accessed the system. Then they had put everything back exactly as they found it. There was no panic. No rushed movements. No careless mistakes.
Whoever had done this had not been afraid of being discovered.
They had expected someone to investigate.
Liam closed the panel slowly and stood, folding his arms across his chest as he looked over the endless rows of blinking lights.
Thousands of hours of recordings. Years of history. Every movement around the estate documented and preserved.
And yet one carefully selected hour had vanished.
Clearly chosen.
The realization settled into place with uncomfortable certainty. This was not an opportunity taken by someone who stumbled across a weakness. This was preparation.
Someone had not just erased the past. They knew we were investigating them.
Liam's gaze shifted toward the darker corner of the room, toward the hallway outside where a security camera should have been monitoring the entrance.
He had always believed some parts of a home should remain private. That a family could not truly live if every hallway and every conversation existed beneath constant observation.
Standing there now, staring at the space where answers should have been, he was no longer sure he wanted to continue that belief. If there had been a camera watching that corridor, perhaps he would already know who had entered this room. Perhaps he would already know whose hands had removed the drive.
Instead, he was left with only questions.
Liam performed one final sweep of the archive before locking the backup unit and turning toward the exit. The steel door opened with a quiet hiss, and he stepped back into the hallway.
Behind him, the door closed once more, sealing away the archive and its unanswered secrets in the same silence that had greeted him. But he had learned one thing. Someone had been inside his house. And they were not afraid for him to know.
Finished with his investigation, he continued up through the gym. Up the narrow corridor to the main floor.
He rounded the corner near his private wing and stopped. Liam stopped when he saw her.
Elena stood outside his door, her hand still raised as if she had been about to knock.
She looked uncertain. Nervous. That alone caught his attention. The Elena Rossi he knew rarely hesitated.
Whatever had brought her here mattered.
"You're looking for me?"