Chapter 1

The heavy velvet curtain of the private box fell away like a breath released, sealing us in our own private world of dust and silence. The air inside my father’s box at the Metropolitan Opera House was always the same—thick, recycled, and scented with the faint, metallic tang of old gold paint and the musk of expensive, aged men. It smelled like money, yes, but it also smelled like authority. It smelled like him. I stepped across the threshold, my heels clicking a sharp, staccato rhythm against the plush, crimson carpet that stretched out before me like a tongue waiting to taste. The opera house was a cavernous beast of noise below, a roaring ocean of chatter, coughing, and the tuning of instruments that vibrated through the soles of my feet, but up here, in the gilded cage, there was only the hush of anticipation. He was standing by the railing, looking down into the abyss of the auditorium. He hadn’t heard me come in. Or perhaps he had, and he was simply savoring the moment of being observed before he turned to claim me. I watched his profile, the way the amber light from the chandeliers below caught the