Chapter 7 - The Man Inside the House)
Simon Vale had worked inside the Ricci mansion for eleven months.
Eleven months.
Marina could not stop thinking about the number.
He had driven Helena to charity lunches.
Carried her bags.
Waited outside restaurants.
Opened car doors.
He had been invisible in the way powerful families often trained themselves to make employees invisible.
Marina remembered speaking to him once in the kitchen.
He had been pouring coffee into a travel cup.
She had asked whether he wanted the blueberry muffins before they were cleared away.
He had smiled.
"Your grandmother used to bake those."
Marina had assumed he meant someone else's grandmother.
Now she remembered the way he had looked at her afterward.
Not casually.
Sadly.
Damiano ordered every room searched again.
Simon was not found.
His employee bedroom was nearly empty.
No photographs.
No letters.
No personal belongings.
Only two uniforms and a pair of shoes.
In the bottom drawer, security found a burner phone.
The call history showed six numbers.
One belonged to James Colton.
One to Catherine.
One to Gabriel Vale.
Marina stared at the name.
"Gabriel is alive?"
Marco nodded.
"So where is he?"
"We're trying to locate him."
Damiano looked at the call log.
"Last contact?"
"Yesterday."
"With Gabriel?"
"Yes."
Helena was brought into the study again.
This time Damiano did not ask her to sit.
"Simon Vale has been your driver for almost a year."
"I know him as Samuel."
"Stop."
"I do."
"Two million dollars went from family accounts to a company connected to him."
Helena's eyes hardened.
"He forced his way into my life."
"How?"
"He contacted me eighteen months ago."
"Before he began working here."
"Yes."
"What did he want?"
Helena looked at Marina.
"The truth."
"About what?"
"Everything."
Damiano waited.
Helena laughed bitterly.
"He had copies of old records. He knew what your father intended to leave Gabriel. He knew I had changed documents after Vittorio died."
Marina felt Damiano go still.
"Changed?"
Helena did not answer.
Damiano's voice dropped.
"You forged my father's will."
"I preserved the will that should have existed."
"You forged it."
"I protected you."
"Did you forge my approval codes on the Bellweather payments?"
"Yes."
The admission came with no apology.
Marina stared.
Damiano looked almost physically struck.
"You stole from the company."
"I paid a blackmailer."
"With company money."
"To protect the company."
"From your own crime."
Helena raised her chin.
"From scandal."
Damiano turned away.
Marina could see his hands trembling.
Not from fear.
From the effort of containing rage.
"What did Simon demand?"
"Money at first."
"And later?"
"Access."
"To this house?"
"Yes."
"Why would you give a blackmailer a job under your own roof?"
Helena's expression tightened.
"Because it was easier to watch him."
Damiano turned back.
"You hired him."
"Under the false identity he provided."
"You knew."
"Yes."
Marina felt sick.
For months, the mansion had contained two people engaged in a private war.
Helena and Simon.
Everyone else had simply lived inside the battlefield.
"What was he looking for?" Marina asked.
Helena's gaze sharpened.
"You."
Marina's heartbeat quickened.
"Why?"
"He discovered who you were."
"When?"
"Before your wedding."
Damiano stared.
"You knew Marina was Elena's granddaughter before we married?"
"Three weeks before."
"And you said nothing."
"What would I have said? Congratulations, you're marrying the granddaughter of the woman your father betrayed me with?"
"She wasn't the woman. She was her granddaughter."
"Blood remembers."
Marina felt something cold inside her.
"You hated me before I ever did anything to you."
Helena looked at her.
"I feared what you represented."
"No. You hated me."
Helena did not deny it.
Damiano stepped between them.
"What did Simon want with Marina?"
"He believed Elena left something to her."
"The documents Catherine mentioned."
"Perhaps."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
Marina stared at Helena.
"What did you think my grandmother left me?"
"The original estate evidence."
"Which would prove Gabriel's claim."
"Yes."
"And destroy the will you forged."
Helena's lips tightened.
Marina finally understood the shape of Helena's cruelty.
The endless chores were not random.
The humiliation was not merely class prejudice.
Helena had been trying to make Marina miserable enough to leave Damiano before Marina discovered her connection to Elena.
And when Marina became pregnant, Helena's urgency had intensified.
Because Marina's child would bind the Vale and Ricci families together permanently.
Damiano asked, "Did you pack the suitcase?"
"No."
"Did Simon?"
"I assume so."
"Why would he pack your clothes?"
"To humiliate me."
Marco spoke from the doorway.
"Or to force you out before something happens."
Everyone looked at him.
"What?" Damiano asked.
Marco held up the burner phone.
"We recovered deleted messages."
"From Simon?"
"Yes."
"To whom?"
"Gabriel."
Marco read one.
Tomorrow. She leaves before midnight.
Another.
I won't let Helena do to Marina what she did to Elena.
And the final message, sent at 2:12 that afternoon.
If Damiano still refuses to see, I'll make him see.
Marina felt chilled.
"Simon packed the suitcase."
"Looks that way."
Damiano frowned.
"But why disappear?"
Marco looked at the message list.
"Maybe he finished what he came here to do."
The lights went out.
The entire mansion dropped into darkness.
Marina gasped.
Damiano grabbed her hand.
Marco immediately drew his flashlight.
"Stay here."
A loud crash sounded somewhere downstairs.
Then another.
Security radios crackled.
A guard shouted through the earpiece.
"Fire alarm in the west archive."
Damiano's face changed.
The west archive contained old Ricci family records.
Records that could prove everything.
Marco ran for the door.
Damiano started after him.
Marina caught his arm.
"Damiano."
He looked back.
From the dark hallway came a faint smell.
Smoke.
And then Helena screamed.
"My documents."
She pushed past them.
Marco grabbed her.
"What documents?"
Helena struggled.
"The originals."
Damiano stared at her.
"You said they disappeared."
May you like
Helena froze.
And in the darkness, the last lie finally broke.
