Chapter 3
I ended the gala myself.
No speeches.
No apologies.
No explanations.
I stood in front of two hundred guests and said, “Everyone leave.”
Nobody argued.
When a man like me says the party is over, people find their coats.
Miranda tried to follow the crowd.
I stopped her at the staircase.
“You stay.”
She smiled, but her eyes were wild.
“Adrian, you’re emotional.”
“My dead wife warned me about you.”
“She was sick.”
“She was murdered in a car crash.”
“She was paranoid before that.”
I stepped closer.
“Say one more word about Elena.”
Miranda’s smile disappeared.
My mother, Celeste, touched my arm.
“Adrian, your sister has only loved Amelia.”
I looked at her hand until she removed it.
“Did you know about Rosa?”
Mother blinked.
“Rosa was trouble.”
“She died.”
“She had a difficult life.”
“That is not an answer.”
Noah stood near Amelia, ready to run if anyone came too close.
He was a child.
Maybe eleven.
Maybe twelve.
Too thin to guess properly.
He kept watching the doors.
As if danger had taught him where exits lived.
I turned to my head of security.
“Lock the house down.”
Miranda snapped, “You can’t hold us prisoner.”
“No,” I said. “But I can keep evidence from leaving.”
Her face changed again.
There it was.
Evidence.
Amelia tugged my sleeve.
“Daddy, I need to tell you.”
I knelt.
Her lips trembled.
“Aunt Miranda said if I walked, you would send me away.”
The floor vanished beneath me.
“What?”
“She said you only loved me because I was broken like Mommy after the crash.”
My throat closed.
“She said if I got better, you would start traveling again and forget me.”
I could barely hear over the blood pounding in my ears.
Mother whispered, “Children misunderstand.”
Amelia flinched at her voice.
I saw it.
I saw my daughter flinch from her grandmother.
That small movement told me the past three years had not been grief.
They had been a cage.
Noah stepped forward.
“My mother recorded things.”
Miranda turned on him.
“Liar.”
He did not flinch.
“She hid a drive in the old fountain wall.”
I looked at my security chief.
“Send two men.”
Miranda laughed too loudly.
“This is insane. You are listening to a street child.”
Amelia lifted her chin.
“He helped me stand.”
Miranda’s eyes cut to her.
For one second, hatred showed.
Pure.
Sharp.
Adult hatred aimed at my little girl.
I moved between them.
“Look at me instead.”
May you like
Miranda swallowed.
I said quietly, “If you hurt my daughter, there is nowhere rich enough for you to hide.”
