Chapter 3 - Catherine's Last Warning
For one second, nobody moved.
Regina stood beside Gianna's crib with the red envelope between two fingers.
Julieta stopped so suddenly behind me that I felt her collide with my shoulder.
Gianna was crying.
Noah sat in the other crib, staring.
Regina smiled.
“Looking for this?”
Every instinct in me screamed to cross the room and take it from her.
I did not.
If she knew I suspected her, she might destroy whatever advantage we still had.
So I forced my face into confusion.
“What is that?”
Regina studied me.
Then Julieta.
“I found it under the nursery dresser.”
Julieta's breathing changed.
Barely.
Regina noticed.
“So,” she said. “You recognize it.”
Julieta said nothing.
I walked toward Regina slowly.
“Give it to me.”
“Why?”
“Because it's in my house.”
Regina tilted her head.
“Maybe your nanny can explain first.”
I turned toward Julieta.
She looked at me.
And somehow she understood.
She lowered her eyes.
“I've never seen it.”
Regina laughed softly.
“You're terrible at lying.”
She opened the envelope.
Empty.
Her expression changed.
I saw it.
A tiny fracture in her control.
Julieta had removed whatever mattered long ago.
Regina looked inside again.
“Nothing,” she said.
I shrugged.
“Then throw it away.”
She watched me.
I walked to Gianna and lifted her from the crib.
My daughter grabbed my shirt.
Regina waited for me to react.
I didn't.
Finally, she dropped the envelope onto the dresser.
“I'll leave you to your morning.”
She walked out.
The moment her footsteps disappeared, Julieta whispered, “She knows.”
“What was inside?”
“A note.”
“Where is it?”
“Safe.”
“Safe where?”
“Not in this house.”
I looked at her.
“I need everything now.”
Julieta glanced at the doorway.
“No.”
My anger flashed.
Then I remembered the floor.
The gloves.
The fear in her face.
I lowered my voice.
“Tell me what you can.”
She held my gaze.
“Your wife met me before she died.”
“How?”
“My mother worked for Catherine's family years ago.”
That surprised me.
Julieta continued.
“When Catherine became pregnant, she contacted me because she knew I had trained in early-childhood care.”
“Why didn't she tell me?”
“She planned to.”
Julieta looked at Gianna.
“Then she started becoming afraid.”
“Of what?”
“She thought someone was looking into the twins' trust.”
I stared at her.
The trust.
Catherine had insisted on creating it after Noah and Gianna were born.
A separate legal structure.
Protected from my business.
Protected even from me in certain ways.
At the time, I had thought it was unnecessary.
Catherine had smiled.
“You protect them from enemies. Let me protect them from paperwork.”
I had signed.
“What did she find?” I asked.
“She never told me everything.”
“Why?”
“Because she didn't trust phones. Or email.”
Julieta swallowed.
“She said if something happened to her, I should wait until someone tried to remove me from the children.”
My skin went cold.
“Remove you?”
“She knew whoever wanted access to them would eventually need anyone loyal to her gone.”
“Why you?”
“Because she left me proof.”
I stared.
“What proof?”
“The key.”
She touched her pocket.
“It opens a private deposit box.”
“Where?”
“A bank outside the city.”
“What's inside?”
“I don't know.”
“You never opened it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Catherine told me not to until two things happened.”
“What things?”
“One: someone questioned the twins' inheritance.”
“And two?”
Julieta looked toward the hallway.
“Someone tried to make you hate me.”
I said nothing.
My wife had predicted this.
Not Regina specifically.
But the pattern.
The removal of a caretaker.
The manipulation of my fear.
The attack on trust.
I hated how much it sounded like Catherine.
She had always seen people three moves earlier than I did.
My phone rang.
Vince.
I stepped away.
“What?”
“I found Regina's lawyer.”
“Who?”
“David Mercer.”
I knew the name.
Family wealth attorney.
Expensive.
Discreet.
“Why does that matter?”
“He was Catherine's estate consultant for three months.”
I closed my eyes.
“Before she died?”
“Yeah.”
“Where is he?”
“Retired.”
“Find him.”
“Already trying.”
I looked at Julieta.
“Pack the twins.”
Her eyes widened.
“Where are we going?”
“Not we.”
She went still.
I corrected myself.
“All of us.”
Within forty minutes, we were in an armored SUV heading north.
Regina believed I had a business meeting.
I left Vince behind to monitor the house.
Noah slept in his seat.
Gianna held Julieta's finger.
I sat across from them.
For the first twenty minutes, nobody spoke.
Finally, I said, “Why didn't Catherine tell me?”
Julieta looked out the window.
“Maybe she tried.”
“I would remember.”
“Would you?”
I stared at her.
She continued carefully.
“You were dealing with threats constantly then. Catherine told me you barely slept.”
“That doesn't mean I wouldn't listen to my wife.”
“No.”
Julieta's voice softened.
“But maybe she knew you would confront whoever she suspected.”
I almost argued.
Then stopped.
Because she was right.
If Catherine had told me someone was circling our children's inheritance, I would have started kicking doors open.
And anyone intelligent would have disappeared.
We reached a private bank in Lake Forest.
Julieta gave the manager the key.
The man disappeared.
Returned with a narrow steel box.
We entered a private room.
Julieta placed the box on the table.
For the first time, her hands shook.
“You open it,” she said.
“Why me?”
“She left it for you.”
Inside were three things.
A flash drive.
A sealed letter.
A photograph.
I picked up the photograph first.
Catherine.
Taken outside a restaurant.
She was visibly pregnant.
Standing beside a younger Julieta.
And behind them, partly reflected in the glass door, was a woman I recognized immediately.
Regina.
My pulse stopped.
The photograph had been taken almost two years before Regina claimed we first met.
I turned it over.
Catherine's handwriting.
If she comes near my children, do not believe the first story you hear.
I sat down.
Julieta covered her mouth.
“You knew?”
“No.”
“She never showed you this?”
“No.”
I opened the letter.
Emilio,
If you are reading this, then something went wrong.
I hope I'm wrong about everything.
I hope one day you laugh at me for being paranoid.
But if I'm right, then please do something you hate doing.
Wait.
Listen.
Do not react first.
Someone has been asking questions about the twins' trust.
Not about your businesses.
Not about your money.
About the structure I created for Noah and Gianna.
They asked what would happen if I died.
They asked what would happen if you remarried.
They asked who could eventually become guardian.
I discovered the questions came through David Mercer.
He claims they were hypothetical.
I don't believe him.
A woman approached him.
I don't know her real name.
The photograph is the closest image I have.
Marek Kowalski helped me obtain it.
Yes, I know what you're thinking.
Sometimes enemies tell the truth because they hate the same liar.
Julieta knows enough to protect the children if I cannot.
Trust her unless you have proof not to.
And Emilio—
Grief will make you dangerous.
Do not let someone use that.
Catherine
I stopped reading.
The words blurred.
Grief will make you dangerous.
She had known me.
Even from the grave, she knew exactly where I would fail.
Julieta touched the flash drive.
“We should see what's on this.”
I inserted it into the secure laptop Vince had sent.
One folder appeared.
MERCER.
Inside were scanned documents.
Trust diagrams.
Email printouts.
Legal notes.
One file had a newer date.
Six months after Catherine's death.
Someone had accessed the twins' trust structure again.
The requestor name:
R. Ashford.
I stared at it.
“She was watching us before we met.”
Julieta whispered, “Yes.”
My phone rang.
Vince.
I answered.
“Talk.”
His voice was tense.
“You need to come back.”
“Why?”
“Regina knows you're not at a meeting.”
“How?”
“She went into your office.”
My jaw tightened.
“The surveillance room?”
“Yeah.”
“Did she see anything?”
“I locked the system remotely.”
“Where is she now?”
“Family room.”
A pause.
“And Emilio?”
“What?”
“She isn't alone.”
My blood went cold.
“Who is with her?”
“David Mercer.”
I stood.
The retired lawyer we had been trying to find was sitting in my house.
With my fiancée.
We drove back faster.
By the time we arrived, Mercer was gone.
Regina sat on the sofa drinking tea.
She smiled when I entered.
“You're home early.”
“So are you.”
She looked at Julieta.
“And you brought the nanny.”
“I needed help with the twins.”
Regina crossed her legs.
“Of course.”
Her eyes went to the small bank envelope in my hand.
Only for a second.
But I saw it.
“You meet anyone today?” I asked.
“No.”
The lie came without hesitation.
I smiled.
Neither of us believed the other anymore.
That night, I pretended everything was normal.
Dinner.
Baths.
A glass of wine with Regina.
A kiss on her forehead.
Then I returned to my office.
Vince had restored the recordings.
At 4:06 p.m., Mercer entered.
Regina met him in the family room.
The audio was clear.
“You said he'd never find the box,” Regina hissed.
Mercer looked nervous.
“I said Catherine hid it well.”
“That's not the same thing.”
“Lower your voice.”
Regina paced.
“If Emilio sees those documents, we're finished.”
Mercer shook his head.
“No. Not if the trust transition happens first.”
“What transition?”
“The marriage.”
My hands curled.
Mercer continued.
“Once you're legally his spouse, the guardianship petition becomes possible if Emilio is declared unfit.”
Regina stared at him.
“And how exactly do we do that?”
Mercer's answer made the room feel suddenly very cold.
“You've already started.”
Regina's face changed.
“How?”
“The cameras.”
She froze.
Mercer leaned closer.
“If Emilio believes the nanny endangered the twins, and he reacts violently, we document everything. Threats. Abuse of staff. Paranoia. Instability.”
Regina smiled slowly.
“So his own fear becomes evidence against him.”
“Yes.”
I stopped the video.
Not because I was finished watching.
Because if I kept going, I would have gone downstairs and ruined everything.
Catherine had warned me not to react first.
For once in my life, I listened.
I pressed play again.
Regina lowered her voice.
“And Julieta?”
Mercer answered.
“She cannot be in that house when the petition begins.”
Regina looked toward the nursery hallway.
“I can fix that.”
Then she smiled.
May you like
And on another camera, thirty feet away, Julieta stood frozen behind the half-open kitchen door.
She had heard everything.
