The first thing Rafe noticed was the silence.
Not the peaceful kind—the curated kind.
The kind Matthew favored when he wanted the mansion to feel like a sanctuary instead of a fortress. No guards pacing the hall. No radio chatter bleeding through the walls. Even the staff moved more quietly than usual, footsteps softened, voices lowered.
It was wrong.
Rafe leaned against the column overlooking the main atrium, eyes half-lidded as if bored. In reality, he was cataloging everything: the new security nodes embedded in the ceiling, the repositioned cameras, the absence of two guards who should have been stationed near the west wing.
Someone had rewritten the rhythm of the house.
And Matthew hadn't noticed.
That, more than anything, made Rafe uneasy.
