Three years ago, Alex Langford—darling of Wall Street, devoted husband, and perfect father—vanished without a trace. No note. No body. Just a half-empty closet, a crimson stain beneath the nursery rug, and the distinct, echoing sense that something was terribly wrong.

Now, the Langford estate sits like a glass coffin on the hill—pristine, polished, and rotting from the inside.

Ava Langford still lives there.

Wrapped in designer silk and sprayed with perfume that never fades, Ava drifts through the house like a dream that refuses to end. She laughs too sweetly. Cries when no one’s watching. And smothers her only remaining lifeline—her 17-year-old son Adrien—with love so intense it feels like a noose.

She kisses his forehead six times before bed. Waits outside his school in a Rolls-Royce every day. Tucks him in. Feeds him dinner like he’s still a child.

Adrien—tall, cold, adored—is unraveling.
The school calls him brilliant. His mother calls him “my baby.”
He doesn’t call her anything at all.

But the glass is cracking.

Someone walks the halls at night. Doors open when no one touches them. There’s a man in the security footage—one with Alex’s eyes, but not his smile. A forgotten journal turns up in Adrien’s room, scrawled with ink and obsession. And beneath the floorboards, something is ticking.

Everyone says Alex left. But Ava remembers that night.
She remembers the knock at the glass.
The way the lights went out.
The man in love with her who should never have been let in.

The bed felt wrong. The sheets too cold. Every breath I took hurt like my lungs had forgotten how to function without Adrien's footsteps echoing somewhere down the hall.


I tried to stay calm. I tried to trust the process. The police were searching. The security footage had been sent for review. Nolan had stayed late, reassuring the officers, comforting me, even making tea like he always did when I got anxious.


Not just with Adrien's disappearance—with Nolan.


He was too helpful. Too present. Hovering like a shadow. And it wasn't the first time I'd felt it. That strange static in the air when he stood too close. That way his voice dipped softer when he said my name. How his eyes lingered on Adrien too long—but not with warmth.


I walked into my study and stared at my wedding photo still framed on the desk. Me in silk. Alex in black. Smiling. Whole. Safe.


I used to think Nolan envied Alex's success. His confidence. His charm.


What if all along, he hadn't hated Alex because he had the life Nolan wanted—but because he had me?


The thought made bile rise in my throat.


Nolan's hand on my back too long after a fundraiser. The flash of something dark in his eyes when Alex kissed my cheek. A time, years ago, when he told me—jokingly—that if I'd met him first, things would've been different.


I clutched the edge of my desk to stay upright.


Adrien had always been wary of Nolan. Always stiff, always quiet around him. I thought it was just his teenage moodiness. But maybe… maybe it was something else. Maybe my son had seen what I was too blind—or too scared—to see.


Nolan Carter didn't love me. Not really.


And now the one person I loved most in the world was missing. Stolen.


By someone who thought I belonged to him.


I picked up my phone with trembling fingers. Nolan's number was at the top of my recent calls. I stared at it, the weight of dread curling deep in my stomach.


But so help me God—if Nolan had touched Adrien—


I would burn the world to the ground to find him.


Chapter 13 - Her Mother's Heart