It was nearly two in the morning inside the grand estate on the edge of town when the quiet was shattered again. The cry sliced through the marble halls, echoing along the high ceilings and polished corridors. The few staff members still awake exchanged uneasy looks. They all knew where the sound was coming from.
It was Oliver’s bedroom.
Oliver was only six, yet the heaviness in his eyes made him seem far older. That night, just like many nights before, he struggled desperately as his father tried to make him stay in bed.
Daniel Whitmore, a powerful businessman who had recently lost his wife, still wore the same wrinkled suit from the day before. Dark circles hung beneath his eyes, proof of weeks without proper sleep. Gripping his son by the shoulders, he tried to summon patience he no longer had.
“Enough, Oliver,” he said sharply. “You sleep in your bed like every other kid. I need rest too.”
With a firm motion, Daniel pressed the boy’s head down against the large silk pillow at the head of the bed. To him it was simply an expensive decoration—another luxury item in a house filled with them.
But for Oliver, it was something entirely different.