I brought my six-year-old daughter Sophie to my husband Brandon’s corporate gala, clutching the crumpled paper necklace she’d made him for Father’s Day, only for his icy secretary Tessa to block the door and sneer that his real fiancée, their young son, and his future in-laws were already upstairs networking as his legitimate family.

The world stopped.

For a second, I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t move.

Then I was running.

Up the stairs. Down the hall. To Sophie’s room.

The door was open.

The bed was made. The toys were scattered across the floor. The window was wide open, the curtains flapping in the cold wind.

Clara was lying on the floor by the dresser, unconscious, a bruise already blooming on her temple.

No Sophie.

“SOPHIE!” I screamed.

I ran to the window. Leaned out. The ground was two stories below. Footprints in the flower bed. A ladder, discarded in the grass.

Strong arms wrapped around me from behind, pulling me back.

“Allie! ALLIE!”

It was Dominic. He was shaking me. His face was white. His eyes were wild.

“She’s gone,” I sobbed. “He took her. He took my baby.”

“NO.” Dominic shook me again, hard. “Listen to me. We will get her back. Do you hear me? We WILL get her back. Nothing is going to happen to her. Nothing.”

Graham and Nate were in the room now. Graham was on the phone with the FBI, his voice so loud and commanding the walls seemed to shake. Nate was kneeling beside Clara, checking her pulse.

“She’s alive,” Nate said. “Just knocked out. Paramedics are on the way.”

Dominic pulled me into his arms, holding me tight against his chest. I could feel his heart hammering against my ear, fast as a racehorse. He was just as scared as I was. He was just better at hiding it.

“Talk to me, Allie,” he said. “Think. When was the last time you saw her?”

“An hour ago,” I gasped. “She was in the playroom. She wanted to color. I told her I’d be right back. I just went downstairs to get her some juice—”

“It’s not your fault,” he said firmly. “None of this is your fault. He planned this. He’s been planning it. He knew our security routines. He knew the shifts. He knew where to hit.”

“How?”

Dominic’s eyes darkened.

“Victoria,” he said.

The name hit me like a fist to the stomach.

No.

No, she wouldn’t. She had given me the tapes. She had promised. She had Ethan to think about.

“Call her,” I said. “Call her now.”

Dominic already had his phone out. He hit speed dial. Put it on speaker.

It rang once. Twice. Three times.

Then—click.

“Dominic,” Victoria said. Her voice was shaking.

“Where is she, Victoria?” Dominic’s voice was low and deadly. “Where is Sophie?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I swear to God, I don’t know. Brandon showed up at my hotel an hour ago. He had a gun. He made me tell him everything. About the security shifts. About the playroom window. About the blind spot by the west gate. He said he’d kill Ethan if I didn’t. I’m so sorry, Alyssa. I’m so, so sorry—”

I grabbed the phone.

“WHERE IS HE, VICTORIA?” I screamed. “TELL ME WHERE HE TOOK MY DAUGHTER OR I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL KILL YOU MYSELF!”

“He didn’t say,” she sobbed. “But he said something about finishing what he started. About making you pay. He had a bag. Full of stuff. Rope. Tape. A knife. And—” She choked. “And a can of gasoline.”

The phone slipped from my hand.

Gasoline.

Brandon was going to kill her. He was going to kill my baby. And then he was going to kill himself.

Because if he couldn’t have her—if he couldn’t have any of it—no one could.

Dominic was already barking orders into his phone. To the FBI. To his security team. To people whose names I didn’t know, people who operated in the shadows, people who could find anyone, anywhere, in under an hour.

“Every road out of the county is blocked,” he said, hanging up. “Every airport. Every train station. Every bus terminal. He’s still in the area. I know it. He wants us to find him. He wants an audience.”

Graham hung up his own phone.

“The FBI is sending every agent they have within a hundred miles. They’re running his cell. His credit cards. His known associates. They’ll find him, Allie. They have to.”

But I wasn’t listening to them.

I was staring at the open window. At the footprints in the flower bed. At the empty room where my daughter had been laughing just an hour before.

And I was remembering.

Seven years ago. Our first date. Brandon had taken me to the old lighthouse on the coast. The one that had been decommissioned in the fifties. The one that stood on the cliffs, alone, looking out over the Atlantic.

He had told me it was his favorite place in the whole world. That when he was a kid, he’d run away there when his parents fought. That it was the only place he ever felt safe.

The only place he could be alone with his thoughts.

The only place he could finish what he started.

“I know where he is,” I said.

Three heads snapped toward me.

“The old Halstead Point lighthouse,” I said. “On the north coast. He used to go there all the time. He told me—” My voice broke. “He told me it was the only place he ever felt at peace.”

Dominic was already moving.

“Nate—call the FBI. Tell them Halstead Point. Tell them to send every unit they have. Helicopters. SWAT. Everything. Graham—you stay here with Clara. Make sure the press doesn’t get wind of this. Allie—you’re with me.”

He grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the door.

“Dominic—she’s my daughter,” I said. “I’m coming with you. No arguments.”

He looked at me. Saw the determination in my eyes. Knew there was no point in fighting.

“Fine,” he said. “But you do exactly what I say. When I say. No heroics. No stupid moves. Is that clear?”

“Crystal.”

We ran out to the car. The engine roared to life. Tires screamed on the gravel.

We tore out of the driveway, heading north.

Toward the ocean.