The afternoon sun glared through the grand arched windows of the Sterling mansion, hitting the white marble floor with blinding brightness.
Maria shoved the heavy gilded oil painting aside, her yellow rubber gloves squeaking against the frame as her breath hitched in her throat.
She pressed her ear flat against the iron ventilation grate embedded in the exposed red brickwork.
Ethan: Please... get me out of here!
Maria: Ethan! Keep making noise, sweetheart! Nana is right here on the other side!
Ethan: My knees hurt so bad, Maria... It's totally dark!
Maria grabbed the flathead steel pry bar from her cleaning bucket, jamming the tip into the rusted screws holding the metal grate fast.
Maria: Ethan, stay calm! I'm breaking you out!
She yanked with every ounce of strength in her shoulders until the iron vent snapped free and crashed against the marble baseboard.
Inside the dusty recess sat seven-year-old Ethan, clutching a faded fleece blanket and a plastic water bottle against his ribs.
Maria reached deep into the masonry, lifting the sobbing boy out into the bright light and wrapping him in her arms.
Ethan: She swore you would never find me...
Maria: You're safe now, Ethan. You're out in the light.
Sharp high heels clicked across the floor as Isabella Vance entered the corridor, smoothing down her emerald green satin dress.
Isabella: Put him back right now.
Maria: You locked an innocent child inside a chimney flue!
Isabella: I told you to put him back in that wall, maid.
The mahogany double front doors banged wide open as Marcus Sterling strode into the foyer in a dark navy blue suit.
Marcus: Isabella!
Marcus stopped dead, his gaze locking onto the open hole in the masonry and his trembling, tear-streaked son.
Marcus: How dare you lock my child behind a wall?!
Marcus charged forward, shoving Isabella hard across the shoulders and sending her crashing flat onto the polished marble tiles.
Isabella: Ah!
Marcus pulled his rescued son tight beneath the American flag hanging from the second-floor mezzanine.
Marcus: Get out of my sight before I destroy you!
Isabella glared from the floor, unaware that the leather briefcase in Marcus's hands held a secret about to dismantle her life forever.