The baseball sat heavy and scuffed in my palm, the red stitching coarse against my skin. Above us, the second-floor gallery fell utterly silent, save for the rhythmic, defiant chewing of bubblegum from a kid with messy brown curls and an oversized hoodie.

Wednesday morning dawned bright, crisp, and deceptively peaceful. The snow from the night before covered the Greenwich estate in a blinding white sheet of pristine winter silence.

Too peaceful.

I stood in the massive, stainless-steel kitchen at 7:30 AM, flipping pancakes on a oversized griddle while the house remained dead quiet. Usually, by this hour, Caleb and Noah were already staging some form of domestic terrorism near the pantry. Today? Not a sound.

Evan walked into the kitchen at 7:45 AM, dressed in his private school uniform—navy blazer, pressed gray slacks, tie knotted with military precision. He didn't look at me. He grabbed a carton of orange juice, poured a glass, and leaned against the counter, staring out the window toward the freezing pool.

"All right, what did you break?" I asked, flipping a pancake with the spatula.

Evan didn't flinch. "Nothing."

"Right. And the Spanish Armada was just a casual boat trip." I slid two pancakes onto a ceramic plate and set it in front of him with a pat of butter and a small jug of maple syrup. "Silence from four boys under twelve means one of three things: they’re plotting a felony, they’re unconscious, or they’re trying to frame me for a federal crime."

Evan took a bite of the pancake, chewing slowly. His eyes flicked up to mine, hiding a secret behind a mask of eleven-year-old indifference. "Dad’s leaving for Manhattan at 9:00 AM. Emergency board meeting for the shipping firm."

"Is he?"

"Yeah. He won't be back until late." Evan set his fork down. "Which means it’s just you, us, and Mrs. Gable."

Mrs. Gable was the sixty-year-old housekeeper who lived in the guest cottage out back and steadfastly refused to enter the main house whenever the boys were awake.

"So," I smiled, leaning against the counter across from him. "The garrison is left without its general. Are you planning a mutiny while he’s gone?"

Evan looked away, a faint flush touching the tips of his ears. "We don't do mutinies. That’s immature."

"Oh, forgive me. What do you call it? A hostile takeover?"

Before Evan could answer, a bloodcurdling scream echoed from the upstairs hallway, followed immediately by the sound of breaking glass and Caleb yelling: "HE’S GOT THE HAMSTER! NOAH, HE HAS THE HAMSTER!"

Evan sighed, picking up his orange juice glass. "I give it ten minutes before Caleb sets the drapes on fire."

"Finish your breakfast, general," I said, pulling off my apron. "Let's go see what kind of disaster your brothers have engineered before breakfast is even digested."

We didn't make it to the stairs.

As we stepped out of the kitchen into the grand foyer, the front double doors—reinforced oak and iron—shook with a heavy, rhythmic pounding that rattled the crystal chandelier overhead.

Evan froze, the color draining entirely from his face.