Glass Mansions

Three years ago, Alex Langford—darling of Wall Street, devoted husband, and perfect father—vanished without a trace. No note. No body. Just a half-empty closet, a crimson stain beneath the nursery rug, and the distinct, echoing sense that something was terribly wrong. Now, the Langford estate sits like a glass coffin on the hill—pristine, polished, and rotting from the inside. Ava Langford still lives there. Wrapped in designer silk and sprayed with perfume that never fades, Ava drifts through the house like a dream that refuses to end. She laughs too sweetly. Cries when no one’s watching. And smothers her only remaining lifeline—her 17-year-old son Adrien—with love so intense it feels like a noose. She kisses his forehead six times before bed. Waits outside his school in a Rolls-Royce every day. Tucks him in. Feeds him dinner like he’s still a child. Adrien—tall, cold, adored—is unraveling. The school calls him brilliant. His mother calls him “my baby.” He doesn’t call her anything at all. But the glass is cracking. Someone walks the halls at night. Doors open when no one touches them. There’s a man in the security footage—one with Alex’s eyes, but not his smile. A forgotten journal turns up in Adrien’s room, scrawled with ink and obsession. And beneath the floorboards, something is ticking. Everyone says Alex left. But Ava remembers that night. She remembers the knock at the glass. The way the lights went out. The man in love with her who should never have been let in.