The cold blue light of the security monitors bathed my face in a sick, ghostly glow. On screen two, Patricia had already turned her back on Rosa, her posture stiff with calculated fury. She walked over to the antique mahogany side table, her manicured fingers tapping sharply against the wood before she whirled back around.

By 9:00 PM, the mansion had grown deathly quiet.

On the monitors, I watched Patricia tuck Martina and Daniela into bed. It wasn't a loving tuck-in; it was a warden securing inmates in their cells. She pulled the blankets up with rough jerks, turned off the lights without a single goodnight kiss, and locked the bedroom door from the outside with a heavy brass key she slipped into her pocket.

“She locks them in,” Marcus whispered, horror coloring his voice. “Every night?”

“Every night she thinks I’m away, apparently,” I growled, standing up from my chair. My joints popped. The adrenaline had burned through my system, leaving behind a cold, lethal focus. “Marcus, disable the hallway cam directly outside the girls' room for precisely forty-five seconds. I’m going down there.”

“Sir, are you sure? If she catches you—”

“She won't catch me. I know every squeaky floorboard in this house better than she ever will.”

I slipped out of the bunker, moving like a ghost through the hidden service corridors that linked the estate’s mechanical framework to the main living quarters. The air smelled of old dust and polished mahogany.

I reached the service panel behind the master walk-in closet, slid the hidden latch, and stepped out into the shadows of the second-floor hallway. The house was pitch black, save for the pale moonlight cutting through the tall Palladian windows.

I crept silently toward my daughters' bedroom.

The heavy brass keyhole stared back at me like a mocking eye. Pulling a set of master skeleton keys from my pocket—a relic from when my grandfather bought the historic estate—I slid the thinnest pick into the lock.

Click.

The lock gave way with barely a whisper.

I slipped inside the room, easing the door shut behind me. The air was thick with the scent of lavender and childhood. In the dim glow of the nightlight, Martina and Daniela were huddled together in Martina’s twin bed, clutching each other like survivors of a shipwreck.

As I approached, Daniela gasped, her little hands flying up to stifle a scream.

“Shh,” I whispered, dropping to my knees beside the bed and pulling off my dark jacket. “It’s me. Daddy’s here.”

Martina’s eyes widened in disbelief. She reached out a trembling hand, her small fingers brushing my cheek as if testing whether I was a ghost.

“Daddy?” she sobbed quietly, throwing her arms around my neck with a force that nearly knocked me backward. “You’re back? We thought... Patricia said you weren't coming back for days... she said—”

“I know, sweetheart,” I murmured, holding them both tight against my chest, tears finally burning my own eyes. “I know everything. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry I didn't see it sooner.”

Daniela buried her face in my shoulder. “She took Mr. Whiskers. And she locked Rosa in the basement. She’s mean, Daddy. She’s so mean when you’re not looking.”

“She’s never going to be mean to you again,” I promised, my voice dropping an octave into a vow carved in stone. “Not today, not ever.”

Just then, a soft scratch echoed from the hallway floorboards.