Chapter 5 - Secrets in the Safe"Do not ever mention my wife's name to justify your cruelty," Thomas said, his voice dangerously quiet, vibrating with suppressed rage. "Get out. Now."
Victoria stared at him, realizing she had crossed a line she couldn't walk back. Her face flushed with humiliation and anger. She grabbed her designer handbag tightly, shooting one last venomous glare at Clara. "You'll regret this, Thomas. You're losing your mind, and when your empire collapses because you're playing house with a fraud, don't come crying to me."
With a sharp click of her heels, she stormed out of the kitchen, the heavy front door slamming shut behind her with a resounding crash.
The kitchen was left in a heavy, suffocating silence.
Lucas buried his face in Clara’s apron, his small shoulders shaking with quiet sobs. Clara gently hummed, rocking him back and forth until his breathing evened out.
Thomas stood frozen, a bitter taste in his mouth. Victoria’s words, venomous as they were, planted a tiny seed of doubt in his mind. Who is Clara? Really?
Agitated and desperate for distraction, Thomas excused himself and retreated to his private study. He sat at his mahogany desk and unlocked the heavy wall safe hidden behind a oil painting. Inside lay stacks of emergency cash, legal deeds, and a locked metal lockbox containing Emily’s personal effects—things the police had recovered from her fatal car crash two years ago.
Thomas rarely opened it. The grief was always too sharp.
But today, driven by an unexplainable urge, he popped the latch on the metal box. Inside were Emily’s wedding ring, a gold locket, a stack of old letters, and a small, leather-bound notebook he had never seen before.
He flipped it open. The first few pages were filled with Emily’s neat, elegant handwriting—grocery lists, charity event schedules, architectural notes for the mansion.
Then, halfway through the book, the handwriting changed.
It wasn't Emily’s anymore. It was messier, softer, written in blue ink. And the name written at the top of the page made Thomas’s blood run cold.
Clara Miller. Foster ID #8842.
Thomas stared at the page, his breath catching in his throat. Emily’s handwriting appeared again on the margin below, scribbled in frantic, hurried ink:
“If anything ever happens to me, find her. She is the only one who knows the truth about the foundation funds and what my father is really hiding.”
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Thomas sat back in his leather chair, the room spinning around him. Clara wasn't just a random maid hired by an employment agency.
She was intentionally planted in his house. And Emily knew her before she died.
