Chapter 2 - Cracks Behind the Marble Walls
The Vale mansion looked perfect from the outside.
Inside, every room held a secret.
Adrian and Victoria rarely ate together. When they did, Victoria complained about his travel schedule, while Adrian answered emails beneath the table.
Victoria hosted extravagant parties for people she claimed to dislike. She purchased paintings she did not understand and donated to charities only when photographers were present.
The staff feared her.
She once fired a housekeeper for placing white roses in a room where she had requested ivory ones. She made a driver wait outside a restaurant for four hours, then criticized him for looking tired.
Elena avoided conflict by staying close to Sophie.
But Victoria increasingly found reasons to interfere.
She changed Sophie’s schedule without warning. She criticized Elena’s uniform. She accused her of becoming too familiar with Adrian whenever he asked about Sophie’s progress.
One afternoon, Adrian returned from Singapore with gifts.
He gave Sophie a miniature wooden house and handed Elena a small paper bag.
“This is for you.”
Elena hesitated.
Inside was a box of tea from a shop she had once mentioned.
“You remembered?”
“You said your mother loved it.”
“Thank you. She will appreciate this.”
Victoria watched the exchange from the staircase.
That evening, she entered Elena’s room without knocking.
Elena was placing the tea inside her suitcase.
“You should be careful,” Victoria said.
Elena turned.
“About what?”
“My husband is generous, but people often misunderstand his generosity.”
“I do not misunderstand anything.”
Victoria walked farther into the room.
“You are young. You live in our house. You spend time with his niece. Do not allow yourself to imagine that makes you part of this family.”
Elena felt insulted, but she kept her voice steady.
“I have never imagined that.”
“Good.”
Victoria glanced at the suitcase.
“Because women like you sometimes become confused when wealthy men are polite to them.”
Elena closed the lid.
“Women like me?”
Victoria smiled.
“Employees.”
After she left, Elena considered resigning.
She even drafted a message to the employment agency.
Then Sophie woke from a nightmare, ran into Elena’s room, and wrapped her arms around her.
“Please don’t leave,” Sophie whispered.
Elena had never told her she was thinking about leaving.
The child had simply sensed it.
Elena deleted the message.
A week later, Adrian asked Elena to meet him in his home office.
“I received Sophie’s school report,” he said. “Her teachers say she is participating again. They say she has made two friends.”
“That is wonderful.”
“It is because of you.”
“Sophie did the hard work.”
Adrian handed her an envelope containing a bonus.
Elena tried to refuse.
“You have already paid me generously.”
“You helped my niece find her way back to us. That is worth more than money, but money is what I know how to give.”
Elena accepted the envelope, intending to send most of it to her mother.
Neither of them noticed Victoria standing outside the partially open door.
That night, she poured herself three glasses of wine and searched Elena’s name online.
She found Elena’s education history, former employers, public photographs, and an old fundraising page for her mother’s medical treatment.
The next morning, Victoria called her private investigator.
“I want everything you can find on the nanny.”
The investigator hesitated.
“Is there a security concern?”
“There will be.”
May you like
Victoria was not searching for the truth.
She was searching for a weapon.
