Drake Manor was too big for an eight-year-old.

It echoed in ways that made the silence feel heavier, stretching down polished hallways and curling up the marble staircase like it was alive. The chandeliers glittered. The floors shined. The staff had been dismissed for the week—privacy, Janet had said crisply—and the house felt less like a home and more like a museum no one was supposed to touch.

Tim knew better than to touch anything anyway.

He’d been alone for three days.

Not that anyone would think that looking at him.

He’d followed the checklist taped inside the pantry door—his own handwriting, careful and small. Breakfast: cereal or toast. Lunch: sandwich. Dinner: microwave meal (remember to vent plastic). Lock doors at 8:30 p.m. Alarm set by 9:00. Homework done before computer time. Don’t forget to water the fern in the sitting room; it droops fast.

He’d been doing this since he was four.

Four was when he’d figured out how to drag a chair to the counter without making it scrape too loudly. Four was when he learned that asking for help meant interrupting phone calls, and interrupting phone calls meant tight smiles and colder voices later. Four was when he realized that if he stayed quiet and capable, he was less inconvenient.

So now, at eight, he was good at it.

Too good.

The glow of his computer screen painted his face blue in the dim office. His legs dangled from the leather chair, not quite touching the floor, but his posture was straight, focused. On the monitor, lines of code blinked back at him. A game window sat minimized in the corner—something simple, something loud enough to fill the quiet but soft enough he’d hear if the alarm beeped.

He’d triple-checked the locks.

He always triple-checked.

The grandfather clock in the hallway chimed seven.

Tim paused, fingers hovering over the keyboard. He wasn’t expecting them back until tomorrow night. That’s what the itinerary said. Geneva gala, private dinner, flight home Sunday.

He’d memorized it.

The front door opened.

Tim’s heart didn’t leap the way other kids’ might. It dropped. Hard and steady, like a weight settling into place.

Voices drifted in—sharp heels against marble, the low murmur of his father’s phone call, the rustle of expensive fabric.

“They moved the Rothschild dinner up,” Janet was saying, irritation threaded through every syllable. “We couldn’t not attend. Do you know who was there?”

Jack gave a distracted hum, still on his call. “Yes, of course, we’ll be at the board meeting Monday.”

Tim quickly minimized the game entirely. He adjusted the computer screen to something more “acceptable”—a stock market article he’d been skimming earlier. He slid off the chair and stood beside the desk instead of sitting. It looked better that way. Less… indulgent.

Janet appeared in the doorway first.

Her gaze swept the room in a single, assessing glance, as if checking for dust.

Then it landed on Tim.

“And what,” she asked coolly, “are you doing?”

Tim straightened automatically. “I finished my homework. And the math packet for next week. I made dinner already. I cleaned the kitchen. I was just—”

“On that thing again?” Her eyes flicked to the monitor. “Honestly, Timothy.”