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Jack

“So, I think I have an answer to Frannie’s worries and our prayers.”

“Go on,” Mike replied.

“If we push aside her dramatics, she does in fact have a dad who is a CEO. I’ve been looking at the analytics on our website, the properties with aesthetically pleasing set-ups have significantly more interest, which may sound obvious.

But we’re providing luxury housing, not a standard run-of-the-mill rental company.

If we expect big money, we need to present our houses as such.

” My phone vibrated in my pocket. Mike nodded and I continued, “Hiring external companies will cost a fortune. I’m not saying it isn’t justifiable but—”

“Fran is our goldmine.”

“My daughter is a fucking goldmine,” I announced proudly.

Another vibration. “The knowledge she’s got for commercial and private real estate design is wild.

She knows her shit. And Willow’s friend Elle?

She’s a photographer. We could amp the business up by utilising her to get the best pictures of the best interior designs. ” Another vibration.

“Do it. So, we hire Fran after her course?”

“I’d say so, that gives us the majority of the year to sort her contract—”

My phone vibrated again, and I angled myself to retrieve it from the back pocket, still talking. “I’m sure giving her the job straight out of uni will make it look like she’s being given preference, but it is a family business. If I can’t hire my daughter as an interior designer, what’s the point?”

Mike chuckled.

“Gabe’s joining this summer as the marketing extraordinaire he is. Family hiring family, nowt wrong with that.”

I nodded, the conclusion allowing me to check my phone.

Blood drained from my face when I found thirteen camera notifications in twenty minutes from inside the house. I’d set it up so that recognised faces wouldn’t set alerts off.

Mike chatted around me as I clicked through each one, finding the terrified face of my daughter being jumped from behind. The volume off, plates clattered to the floor as her tiny body struggled against the intruder.

“Shit.”

I stood in a panic, clicking to another camera. The hallway camera showed Willow entering the kitchen and freezing. The next showed Cain Heller crowding her space and touching her. Her head reared back, and she slapped him away.

Mike looked over my shoulder, and when I flicked over to the live view from the same angle. Willow shifted, and beyond her shoulder, revealed Frannie strapped to a bar stool, Cain’s arm wrapped around her, with a knife to her throat. A sob wracked my body, and Mike shook my shoulder.

“Jack, look,” he croaked, nodding to the window which faced the street.

Blue lights lit up houses, reflecting off windows and increased as police cars parked up.

“Shit.”

Together we shot out of the room, every movement in slow-motion as I yanked the front door open, uncaring if it remained on its hinges.

White noise buzzed through my ears, only the thudding of my feet against the hard pavement and the faint barking of dogs piercing through. We weaved between police cars and swarming officers as an ambulance pulled up. I tried to break through the front gate, only for firm hands to jolt me back.

“You can’t go in there,” an officer barked.

“T-that’s my house. My daughter and girlfriend are inside,” I sobbed.

“Excuse me, sir?” a female voice called from my side.

I couldn’t look away from the red front door, desperate to get to my girls.

“I’m DS Lindsay Elms. Do you know what’s happened here tonight?

” I shook my head, fat tears spilling as I dragged my hand over my jaw.

She continued, “We received a call from a Willow Thornton?”

“That’s his girlfriend,” Mike replied on my behalf.

“She reported a disturbance and raised concerns it was a Mr ” —she checked her notes— “Cain Heller. Despite the insistence of the call handler, she left the upstairs bedroom and ventured downstairs. We still have her on the phone and can hear the conversation.”

“There’s cameras throughout the house. The footage is on his phone,” Mike replied behind me, taking the phone from my hand as I stared blankly at the front of my house.

He turned the volume up and suddenly the barks of the dogs and low kitchen conversation reverberated through.

My worst nightmare had come true and there was absolutely nothing I could do but watch the horrors unfold.