Chapter 5 - Confrontation in the Snow
Inside the shelter, Beatrice was softly humming a lullaby, stroking the little girl's hair as she finished the last of the food.
"Go back to sleep, my love," Beatrice murmured, tucking a threadbare blanket around the child. "Tomorrow, Mama will try to find a better blanket. Just hold on a little longer."
I didn't wait any longer.
I stepped out from the shadows, my footsteps heavy and deliberate. The crunch of gravel under my boots made Beatrice gasp, her head whipping around in sheer terror as she scrambled to stand between the door and her sleeping daughter.
"Who's there? Please, take whatever I have, just leave us alone—" she choked out, her hands trembling violently.
She stopped talking the moment I stepped into the amber light of the doorway.
Color drained completely from her face. Her lips parted in a silent, horrified gasp. She looked at me the way a man condemned to the gallows looks at the executioner's axe.
"Mr... Mr. Vance," she whispered, her voice barely a breath.
I pulled off my leather gloves, letting them drop onto the frozen floor. My voice, when I spoke, was dangerously quiet, carrying the heavy weight of a storm about to break.
"You've been working in my kitchen for six months, Beatrice. You clean my silver, you serve my guests, and every night, you sneak out to feed a little girl who looks remarkably like a ghost from my past."
Beatrice fell to her knees, not out of submission, but because her legs could no longer support her weight. Tears streamed freely down her cheeks, freezing almost instantly in the frigid air.
"Kill me," she sobbed, pressing her forehead against the rough wooden floorboards. "Do whatever you want to me, Mr. Vance. But please... leave Elena out of this. She didn't ask for any of this."
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I crouched down until I was eye-level with the terrified mother, my gaze piercing straight through her soul.
"Start talking, Beatrice. And you better pray your next words are the truth, because the man who lied to me about who she is... is already a dead man."
