CHAPTER 4 — The Secret Hidden Inside the Safe
I grabbed Clara's shoulders.
"What are you talking about?"
She looked terrified.
For three years, she had quietly cleaned our home.
Prepared meals.
Delivered medicine.
Avoided attention.
Now I realized she hadn't been hiding because she was shy.
She had been hiding because she knew too much.
"My father..." I whispered.
"Is he in danger?"
She nodded.
"They've been poisoning him."
The words hit harder than the accident ever had.
"No."
"Slowly," Clara said.
"Small doses."
"So it would look like natural heart failure."
Across the ballroom, Martin suddenly laughed.
"You expect anyone to believe the maid?"
His confidence returned almost instantly.
"She's making up stories."
But Clara reached into the pocket of her apron.
She pulled out a tiny silver key.
My blood ran cold.
I recognized it immediately.
The master key to my father's private office.
Only three copies existed.
Mine.
My father's.
And one that had disappeared six months earlier.
"How did you get that?" I asked.
Clara's voice trembled.
"I stole it back."
Martin's smile disappeared.
"I saw him," Clara continued.
"Late one night."
"He opened your father's safe."
"He copied documents."
"He replaced prescription bottles."
"He never saw me."
Marcus immediately signaled his team.
Two guards moved toward Martin.
He suddenly shoved one of them aside and ran.
Guests screamed as tables overturned.
Crystal glasses shattered.
Martin sprinted through the ballroom toward the emergency exit.
Marcus chased him.
Three security officers followed.
Daniel hesitated for only a second...
Then he ran after Martin.
Not to stop him.
To help him escape.
"I knew it," I whispered.
"My best friend."
My oldest friend.
He had betrayed me too.
Outside, tires screeched.
A black SUV roared away from the estate.
Marcus jumped into another vehicle.
"Stay here!" he shouted before speeding after them.
The ballroom descended into chaos.
Ambulances arrived for Titan.
Doctors rushed to check my father.
Police officers flooded the mansion.
As I stood in the middle of the destruction...
Clara quietly handed me a folded envelope.
"I found this inside the safe before they could burn everything."
Across the front, written in my father's handwriting, were six chilling words:
"If you're reading this... I've already been murdered."
My hands began to shake.
I slowly opened the envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
Not of Martin.
Not of Daniel.
Not of Vanessa.
It was Clara.
Standing beside my father.
Twenty-five years ago.
She couldn't have been more than six years old.
On the back of the photo, my father had written one sentence that changed everything.
"Protect your sister, no matter what it costs."
I stared at Clara.
She stared back through tears.
Neither of us could breathe.
Because we had just discovered the truth.
May you like
She wasn't our maid.
She was family.
