Chapter 4 - THE TWENTY-FOUR HOURS
The night passed like a fever dream viewed through a wall of glass.
I didn't sleep. I stayed in the dark surveillance room, sitting in the leather chair, watching the house operate in my absence.
At 7:00 PM, Patricia ordered Rosa to serve dinner to the girls in the small breakfast nook off the kitchen—a room usually reserved for morning coffee. She refused to allow them to sit in the main dining room. She sat alone at the long mahogany table, drinking wine, scrolling through her phone, entirely indifferent to the silence that hung over the mansion.
At 8:30 PM, she went upstairs to the girls' bedrooms.
I watched screen seven with bated breath, my fingers coiled into tight fists. But she didn't yell this time. She simply stood in the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest, watching Daniela and Martina get into their beds.
"If I hear a single sound from this hallway tonight," Patricia said through the speaker, her voice quiet, cold, and measured, "I will take Barnaby and throw him in the trash compactor myself. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Patricia," both girls whispered from beneath their duvet covers.
She shut the door, turning the key in the outside lock.
My jaw clenched so hard I felt a sharp pain radiate up into my temple. She locked them in. She locked my nine-year-old and eleven-year-old daughters in their bedrooms as if they were prisoners in an asylum.
Ten minutes later, after Patricia had retired to the master suite with a fresh glass of wine, screen nine showed Rosa creeping up the back service stairs.
She carried a brass master key—a spare key I had given her three years ago for emergency cleaning access. She walked silently down the carpeted hallway, unlocked the girls' door with infinitely gentle care, and slid it open three inches so it wasn't latched.
She didn't go inside. She didn't make a sound. She simply left the door unlatched so they wouldn't feel trapped, then sat down on the floor in the dark hallway, her back pressed against the linen closet wall, holding a small wooden rosary in her lap.
She stayed there all night.
She didn't sleep. Every forty-five minutes, she would stand up, silently peer through the crack in the door to check on their breathing, then sit back down on the cold floorboards.
Sitting in my dark bunker two hundred feet away, watching this humble woman endure a freezing hallway night just to guard my children from the monster I had brought home, I felt tears burn my eyes for the first time since Elena’s funeral.
How could I have been so blind? I asked myself, staring at the screen. How could I have let my grief, my fatigue, my corporate arrogance cloud my vision so completely that I mistook a predator for a savior and a guardian for an enemy?
By 6:00 AM, the fog had cleared from the valley outside. A brilliant, cold morning light broke over the mountain, illuminating the vast grounds of the estate.
On screen one, Patricia emerged from the master suite wearing a crimson silk morning gown. She looked refreshed, triumphant, like a general surveying a conquered territory. She walked down the grand staircase, her hand sliding over the polished bronze railing.
She called for Rosa.
Rosa, who had slipped back down to the kitchen fifteen minutes earlier to begin preparing breakfast, stepped into the foyer. Her eyes were dark with exhaustion, but her posture remained straight, her expression completely unreadable.
"Ma'am?" Rosa said.
"I am going out for lunch at the country club at twelve," Patricia announced, sitting down at the small writing desk near the entrance. "I want the master bedroom scrubbed, the bed linens changed to the Egyptian cotton set, and I want you to pack the girls' bags."
Rosa froze. "Pack their bags, ma'am?"
"I’ve arranged for them to spend the next three days at the lake house with my sister," Patricia lied smoothly, not even looking up from her tablet. "They need a change of scenery. A shuttle service will pick them up at eleven."
My heart stopped in the surveillance room.
She isn't sending them to a lake house, I realized with sudden, terrifying clarity. She's removing them from the house before I return so she can stage the theft discovery without them present to defend Rosa.
"Mr. Duarte did not mention a trip to the lake house, Miss Patricia," Rosa said, her voice dropping into a dangerous, steady low tone. "I cannot allow the girls to leave the property without Mr. Duarte's direct authorization."
Patricia set her tablet down on the desk with a sharp, heavy click. She stood up, her crimson gown trailing behind her like a pool of blood.
"You don't 'allow' anything in this house, Rosa," Patricia said, walking over to stand inches from her. "The shuttle is coming at eleven. If you attempt to stop them from getting into that car, I will call the police immediately and report that you have physically assaulted me. Do you think the local precinct will take the word of an illegal servant over the future Mrs. Duarte?"
Rosa stared at her. Her lips parted slightly, but no words came out. For the first time, I saw a flicker of absolute helplessness pass over her face. She was trapped. She had no authority, no legal backing, no power against a woman who possessed millions of dollars and a high-society name.
"Eleven o'clock," Patricia repeated, a nasty, victorious smile spreading across her red lips. "Have them ready at the front door."
She turned and walked back up the stairs toward the dressing room.
In the surveillance room, I stood up.
My body was entirely calm now. The rage had burned off, leaving behind a sharp, cold diamond of absolute clarity.
"Marcus," I said.
"Sir?"
"Call Carlos. Have the Maybach pulled up to the main iron gates."
May you like
"And the legal team?" Marcus asked, pulling out his radio.
"Tell Vance to meet me in the foyer in twenty minutes with the police chief," I said, pulling my dark coat back over my shoulders and adjusting my silver cufflinks. "It's time to go home."
