Chapter 2 - THE SECRET IN THE BASEMENT“He didn’t hire her for her resume. He hired her because of her bloodline.”I didn't waste a single second. I rushed back upstairs toward the staff quarters located in the east wing of the estate. The room was dark, smelling faintly of cheap fever medicine and lavender oil.

Elena was lying under a thin blanket, shivering violently, her face deathly pale. When she heard my heavy footsteps, she forced herself up, her trembling body barely able to support her weight.

“Mr… Mr. Vance…” she gasped, her voice raspy and broken. She tried to bow her head, panic instantly filling her bloodshot eyes. “I’m so sorry… I took my medicine… I’ll go clean the upper hallway right now, please don’t fire us—”

“Stop,” I snapped, though my voice softened immediately as I saw her fear. “Lie down, Elena. Right now.”

She froze, staring at me as if waiting for a executioner’s blade to drop.

Nora crept into the room behind me, clutching the clean towel around her shoulders like a cape. She ran to her mother’s side and hugged her arm tight. “Mama, Mr. Luca didn’t get mad! He wrapped my hands!”

Elena looked from Nora’s towel-wrapped hands to my face, tears springing to her eyes. “Mr. Vance… please, she’s only three. She doesn’t know any better. Punish me, not her…”

“Nobody is getting punished except the monster who frightened your daughter,” I said, sitting down in the wooden chair beside her bed. “Harland has been removed. Permanently. I’ve called my private physician. He will be here in ten minutes to treat your illness.”

Elena stared at me in absolute disbelief. In the criminal underworld, my reputation was infamous—a cold-hearted mafia kingpin who showed no mercy to enemies. Yet here I was, ensuring a maid got medical care.

“Elena,” I said, leaning forward, my gaze fixing onto hers with absolute intensity. “Before Harland was dragged out, he said something. He told me to ask you about the fire at the Vance estate twenty years ago.”

Elena’s face drained of what little color she had left. She began to hyperventilate, clutching Nora close to her chest.

“He… he’s lying…” she whispered, but her trembling hands betrayed her.

“My mother, Sarah Vance, died in that fire,” I said, my voice dropping to an icy octave. “I was eight years old. I survived because someone shoved me out of the ground-floor window into the snow. The arsonist was never caught. Why would Harland mention that fire, Elena?”

Elena buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking with violent sobs. “Because… because I wasn’t just hired six months ago through an agency, Mr. Vance. Harland brought me here because he was blackmailing me.”

May you like

"No," Roman said, his voice dropping an octave as he stared out the floo...

The silence in the CrossTech laboratory was absolute, save for the rhyth...

Elena did not tear the earbuds from her ears. She did not smash the phon...

“Blackmailing you with what?”

“My father…” Elena sobbed, looking up at me with terror-filled eyes. “My father was the head butler for your family twenty years ago. The night the house burned down… my father was accused of locked the doors from the outside!”