Chapter 1: The Fractured Foundation

The mansion had never been a home so much as a stage set for performances nobody believed. Built during the dot-com flush of the late ‘90s, it sat on five manicured acres in the far western reaches of Kansas City, Missouri—close enough to the interstate that the low rumble of trucks sometimes vibrated the windows at night, far enough that the city felt like a rumor. White columns flanked the front door like sentinels, the slate roof caught every slant of winter light, and the wraparound porch remained untouched except by leaves and the occasional raccoon. Inside, marble floors stayed perpetually cold, crystal chandeliers threw fractured rainbows across cream walls, and family photos lined the mantel in chronological order: awkward wedding shots, forced holiday smiles, Sophia’s high-school graduation where she wore too much eyeliner and Julian looked like he’d rather be anywhere else.

Sophia had hated the place from the moment her mother pulled the U-Haul into the driveway six years earlier. She was twenty-three, fresh from a mediocre art-school degree in St. Louis, portfolio thick with black-ink panels of women breaking things. The house felt like hush money: look, your new stepfather has money, so stop being angry about your real dad walking out when you were ten. She lasted eight months before she rented a shoebox loft downtown near the Crossroads arts district—close to galleries that never called her back. But rent was rent, galleries were fickle, boyfriends were worse, and every few months the lease would expire or the checking account would dip below zero, and she’d come crawling back with a duffel bag and excuses. Each return carved another notch of defeat. She slept in the lavender-walled bedroom her mother refused to repaint, surrounded by cardboard boxes of unfinished comics she swore she’d publish “someday.”

Julian had claimed the east wing like squatter’s rights the day after college graduation. He told everyone it was temporary while he “built something.” Six years later the “something” was a six-figure remote cybersecurity gig protecting banks that probably laundered worse secrets than this family held. He kept vampire hours—coding until the sky lightened, sleeping through afternoons, emerging only when hunger or the need for coffee forced him downstairs. The house suited him perfectly: long silent hallways, doors that locked, no one asking why he never brought anyone home, why loud voices made his shoulders rise, why he sometimes stood in front of the mantel photos staring like a detective at a crime board.