Luring Shadows

A Manhattan money-magnate’s pulse is stilled by the hush of a velvet-lined room; securities flutter like wounded birds across Persian rugs while a diamond necklace glitters with predatory malice. The butler, Jason—half-shadow, half-servant—hovers in the periphery, his gloved palms still warm from the previous evening’s presentation of that very jewel. Florence, the heiress, inherits only the iron bars of suspicion: her father’s estate locked away, her mourning veils stitched with whispers. Police ledgers, candle-flame depositions, and a city that never sleeps conspire to turn a library into a tribunal where class, blood, and money perform a danse macabre.