Chapter 5 - The Maid’s Secret
Elena did not deny it.
That frightened me more than a lie would have.
She stood in my bedroom doorway at two in the morning wearing the same black maid’s uniform she had worn all day.
Sophie slept curled on the sofa beneath a blanket.
The triplets were finally asleep.
I kept my voice low.
“Mateo Vega was your husband.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Elena looked toward Sophie.
“Because I needed the job.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It is the only answer that mattered.”
Marco stood behind me.
Elena noticed.
“Are you accusing me?”
“I’m asking questions.”
“You came into the room with armed security.”
“You work in the house where someone placed devices beneath my children.”
Her face hardened.
“And my daughter is the reason you found them.”
The statement landed cleanly.
I lowered my voice.
“Which is why you’re still standing here instead of downstairs with everyone else.”
She crossed her arms.
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything about Mateo.”
Pain crossed her face.
Seven years might pass.
Grief learned patience.
It did not disappear.
“He drove for one of your companies.”
“I know.”
“No. You know what the report said.”
I stared at her.
“What did the report miss?”
“Mateo told me he thought someone inside your organization was stealing.”
Marco stepped forward.
“What?”
Elena continued.
“He started coming home nervous. He said shipments were being redirected before they reached warehouses. He thought somebody was selling routes.”
“Names?”
“He never gave me one.”
“Why?”
“He said knowing would put me in danger.”
I felt anger rising.
Not at her.
At the past.
“Then what happened?”
“One night he kissed Sophie while she was sleeping.”
Sophie would have been an infant.
“He told me if anyone came to the apartment, I was supposed to take her and leave.”
Elena’s voice weakened.
“I asked him what was wrong.”
She looked at me.
“He said he had finally found proof.”
Marco and I exchanged a glance.
“Proof of what?”
“That someone close to you was betraying you.”
I remembered that year.
Routes leaked.
Police raids occurred minutes after shipments changed locations.
Three men died in the warehouse ambush.
Mateo had been listed among them.
At the time, we blamed a rival crew.
“What proof?”
“I don’t know. Mateo never came home.”
“And you never contacted me?”
Elena laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“You were Adrien Moretti.”
“You say that like it explains everything.”
“It did to a twenty-three-year-old widow with a baby.”
She was right.
My name had protected my family.
It terrified everyone else.
“I believed if Mateo died because he discovered something in your organization, coming to you might get Sophie killed too.”
“So three years later you applied for work in my house?”
Elena looked embarrassed.
“I needed money.”
“There are other houses.”
“My mother became sick. Hospital bills took everything.”
She paused.
“And your estate paid better.”
“Why use your real name?”
“Because I had nothing to hide.”
Marco asked, “Who hired you?”
“Mr. Russo interviewed me.”
Gabriel.
Again.
I felt the pattern tightening.
“Gabriel knew who you were?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing. He asked whether Mateo Vega had been my husband. I told him yes.”
“And he hired you anyway.”
“Yes.”
That made no sense.
If Gabriel was involved in Mateo’s death, bringing Elena into my house was a risk.
Unless he wanted her close.
Or unless he was innocent.
“Did Gabriel ever ask you about Mateo again?”
“Once.”
“When?”
“About six months after I started.”
“What did he ask?”
“Whether Mateo had left anything behind.”
Marco became very still.
“What did you tell him?”
“That he hadn’t.”
“Was that true?”
Elena looked toward Sophie.
I knew the answer.
“No.”
I stepped closer.
“What did he leave?”
“A key.”
“To what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where is it?”
Elena shook her head.
“I got rid of it.”
“Elena.”
“I was scared.”
“How did you get rid of it?”
“I hid it.”
“That isn’t getting rid of it.”
Her eyes moved toward the sleeping Sophie.
Then I understood.
“You gave it to someone.”
“No.”
“To Sophie?”
“No.”
“Where?”
Elena closed her eyes briefly.
“Inside one of her old toys.”
I looked toward the cloth doll on the table.
Her eyes followed mine.
“No. Not that doll.”
“Which toy?”
“A wooden music box Mateo bought before Sophie was born.”
“Where is it?”
“At our apartment.”
Marco already had his phone out.
“Address.”
Elena gave it.
I stopped Marco before he could leave.
“No large team.”
He frowned.
“If someone sent that email, they may know about the key.”
“Exactly.”
I looked at Elena.
“Who knows where you live?”
“Payroll. Human resources.”
“And Gabriel.”
“Yes.”
Twenty minutes later, Marco left with two men.
I remained at the estate.
I hated it.
Every instinct told me to go.
But Theo had woken and refused to let go of my shirt.
So I sat on the edge of the bed holding my son.
He pressed his head beneath my chin.
For years, I had believed protecting my children meant hiring guards.
Building walls.
Making enemies afraid of my name.
Theo did not care about any of that.
He simply wanted my hand on his back.
Sophie woke around three.
She saw me holding Theo.
“Is he okay?”
“I think so.”
She climbed from the sofa.
“Can I see him?”
I nodded.
She approached carefully.
Theo reached toward her.
Sophie smiled.
“He likes me.”
“He does.”
“Because I’m little.”
“Maybe.”
She considered that.
“Grown-ups don’t listen when little people say things.”
I thought about the past hours.
“You might be right.”
“My mommy listens.”
“That makes your mother smarter than most people I know.”
Sophie smiled proudly.
Then she pointed at the doll.
“Can you fix her?”
The seam remained open.
“I can buy you a new one.”
“I like this one.”
“It had something bad inside.”
“The doll didn’t put it there.”
I stared at her.
Four-year-olds had a brutal way of simplifying morality.
Objects were not guilty because bad people used them.
People were.
“I’ll have it fixed.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
My phone rang.
Marco.
I answered.
“Tell me.”
“We’re at Elena’s apartment.”
“And?”
“The door was already open.”
I stood.
“Elena.”
She looked at me.
Her face drained of color.
“Someone searched it,” Marco continued. “Place is destroyed.”
“The music box?”
“Found it.”
Relief lasted less than a second.
“Empty.”
Elena covered her mouth.
“What?”
“The compartment where the key was hidden has been forced open.”
“Prints?”
“Working on it.”
I walked toward the window.
“Anything else?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Someone left something on Sophie’s bed.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
“A photograph.”
“Of?”
“You.”
I turned slowly.
Marco continued.
“It’s an old photograph. Maybe seven years.”
“Who else is in it?”
“Gabriel.”
I stopped breathing for half a second.
“And Mateo Vega.”
The past suddenly reached into the present.
Three men in one photograph.
One dead.
One missing.
One standing in a bedroom holding his terrified child.
“Turn it over,” Elena whispered.
I looked at her.
“What?”
She had gone pale.
“If they left the picture, turn it over.”
I repeated it to Marco.
Paper moved across the phone.
Then silence.
“Marco.”
“There’s writing.”
“Read it.”
His voice changed.
“Mateo was the first.”
A pause.
“The triplets were supposed to be next.”
Elena grabbed the bedpost.
I looked toward my sleeping children.
“Anything else?”
“Yes.”
Marco’s next words chilled me more than everything before them.
“It says, ‘Sophie has what belongs to us.’”
I turned toward the four-year-old girl.
She was sitting on the carpet innocently smoothing the dress of her doll.
May you like
Whatever Mateo had hidden seven years ago—
Someone believed his daughter still had it.
