A housekeeper’s three-year-old child climbed into a billionaire’s bed at midnight, unwittingly exposing a three-year poison plot by his own family.

The warm, amber peace of the bedroom lasted for precisely seven seconds.

Lily was about to close her storybook when her small hand suddenly froze over the paper cover.

Her proud smile vanished.

The atmosphere in the room did not shift gradually; it severed like a snapped cable.

Lily’s head turned slowly, agonizingly, away from Vincent's face. Her dark, wide eyes moved across the dim bedroom, past the velvet armchairs, past the mahogany nightstand, locking directly onto the three-inch gap of the dark bedroom doorway.

Vincent, his mind lingering on the edge of subconsciousness, felt the sudden, rigid tension in the child’s body pressed against his leg.

His gray eyes snapped open instantly.

The drowsiness that had taken thirty minutes to cultivate vanished in a single, electric pulse of adrenaline. Vincent’s posture reverted to its lethal, guarded baseline. He didn't move his head frantically; he kept his broad back against the headboard, his pale eyes cutting sharply down toward the child.

"What?" Vincent whispered, his raspy voice dropping into a dangerous, low frequency.

Lily didn't look at him. Her eyes stayed glued to the dark opening of the door, her tiny fingers digging deep into the soft, grey fur of her stuffed rabbit.

"The person who comes here when you sleep..." Lily whispered.

Vincent sat upright in a single, fluid, terrifying motion.

The mattress shifted under his heavy frame. The laptop slid two inches across the duvet. His gray eyes narrowed into razor-sharp slits as his mind processed her words.

"I don't sleep, Lily," Vincent stated, his tone flat, cold, and razor-sharp.