CHAPTER 1
Sophia Walker's scream echoed through the villa as she slid helplessly down the curved marble staircase. One arm wrapped around her eight-month-pregnant belly. The other desperately clung to the polished wooden railing. "Save... my child!" Ethan lunged toward her. Halfway up the stairs, something caught his eye. A section of the railing above Sophia had snapped clean away. He reached Sophia just as James Collins rushed into the hall and knelt beside her. "Don't move," James said calmly, supporting her shoulders without shifting her body. A metallic clink interrupted the silence. A brass screw bounced from one marble step to another before stopping beside Ethan's shoe. He picked it up. His eyes rose to the broken railing. The empty mounting hole matched the screw perfectly. James looked up. "She fell..." Ethan slowly closed his hand around the screw. "No," he said quietly. "Someone loosened it." The hall fell completely silent.
