Page 39 of The Billionaire's Angel

“No. I’ll talk to Aiden, but we don’t want to call the police over something like this. Word would get out, and we’d have the media parked at the end of the drive for weeks. Not worthit.”

I reached Aiden's door and kicked it a few times with one foot, giving him a little warning before we interrupted his sleep. Balancing Sophie's weight on one arm, I turned the handle and shoved the dooropen.

Aiden was stumbling through the bedroom door into the sitting room, dressed in a pair of boxers and nothing else. Before he could talk, I said, “Go get dressed. Someone was in the house, and they hit Sophie. I need you to watch her while I do asearch.”

Aiden's eyes widened in shock, but he'd already turned back into his room to grab clothes. A minute later he reappeared, wearing his discarded dress shirt over a pair of athletic shorts. Staring at Sophie, still cradled in my arms, he said, “Is shealright?”

I settled her onto the couch in Aiden’s sitting room. “Looks like just a bump on the head, and I don't think there was any loss of consciousness, but I’ll check her out more thoroughly after I search the house. He's probably longgone.”

Aiden looked to the door of his suite, at the discreetly placed alarm panel beside it. All the lights were red, indicating the alarm was set. “The alarm is still on,” Aiden said, looking from me to Sophie, and back to the red lights glowing on thewall.

“I know.” I pulled my gun from the small of my back and started out of the suite, saying over my shoulder, “Lock the door behind me. I won't belong.”

That was optimistic. Winters House covered four floors and was over seventeen thousand square feet. I couldn't search the whole thing by myself. At least notquickly.

I didn't bother with the second level or the attics. The only way to get up there was the main staircase. I’d been between Sophie and that staircase after she screamed, and no one had passed me in thedark.

Winters House was built in a square around the central courtyard, but the front side was bisected by the driveway and gate at the front of the house, creating dead ends out of both Sophie's hallway and the mirror hallway on the other side of the house where Jacob and Annalise’s suites were. If the intruder had hit Sophie outside the door of the library and Aiden's office, there was only one place he could've gone without my seeinghim.

Thebasement.

Chapter Sixteen

Gage

Istrodedown the hall to the library, turning on lights as I went. I had a feeling the intruder was long gone, but I wasn't going to give him any convenient shadows to hidein.

The library appeared undisturbed, neatly straightened since our card game, the pillows fluffed, the blankets carefully folded. Not a thing was out of place and the door in the far corner, carefully concealed to look like part of the wood paneling, was securelyshut.

Standing before the door, I examined it for any evidence of tampering. The staircase from the library to the hall outside the theater room below wasn't a secret, per se. It was on the plans of the house and most of our close friends and frequent visitors knew it was there. On the opposite side of the house, a similar discrete door and staircase connected the laundry room to the hall by the kitchen storageroom.

Those two staircases were the only ways to enter the lower level, though the staircase on the kitchen side of the house was used more often. It was wider, better lit, and easier toaccess.

This door, in the library, was built into the paneling, nearly invisible if you didn't already know it was there. My great-grandfather had liked the idea of a secret passageway. It was impossible to open unless you knew the trick. Unfortunately, a lot of people knew thetrick.

Crossing the room to the fireplace, I slid my fingers into a groove under the marble mantelpiece and pushed. A quiet click sounded. Behind me, the door to the staircase swung open. The lights in the library illuminated the first few feet of the secretpassage.

I paused for a moment in the doorway, listening. Nothing. I flipped the light switch beside the door and started into the passage. Brass sconces with flickering bulbs lined the curved stairwell, giving it the look of a dungeon staircase in an old school horrorflick.

Normally, I thought it was cool. Hunting an intruder in my house, I was annoyed by the way the steep, curving stairs cut off my sight lines and slowed mydescent.

I knew how to move in complete silence. With every step, my ears strained for a hint that the intruder was still in thehouse.

Nothing.

If this guy was smart, he'd taken off the second Sophie had screamed. He was getting in and out of Winters House without setting off the alarm so he couldn't bestupid.

I reached the bottom of the staircase and stepped into the hallway that ran the length of the basement of Winters House. Empty. The doors to the theater room, immediately to my left, were closed, just as I'd left them the daybefore.

Further down the hall, the double doors to the gym were open, also as I'd left them. As it always was, the door to the storage room was shut. I jogged up the stairs at that end of the hall to check the laundry room. Empty andundisturbed.

I wanted to get back to Sophie. I needed to make sure she was all right. I was almost positive she was. She hadn’t been unconscious, and the hit probably hadn't been hard enough to give her a concussion, but I needed to see formyself.

I didn't like leaving her alone withAiden.

It wasn'tjealousy.

Itwasn't.