Fantine

The door behind the bookcase opened up with a scrape against the floorboards, and three personal guards stepped out into the study with their rifles raised toward Riley's chest, but I stepped right past his side and pulled my mother's small cloth journal out from my jacket pocket, holding it high in my left hand so every man in the room could see the dark ink writing across the cover page.

"Lower those rifles right now, all three of you, because before you pull those triggers for my father, you need to hear what my mother wrote about the night he took control of this house," I commanded, stepping...