Chapter 2 - THE HOUSE THAT WAS NEVER HIS
Claire didn't leave.
Daniel ordered her to.
Vanessa begged him to calm down.
Rosa remained kneeling beside the bucket, shaking so badly that water spilled over its rim.
But Claire walked past her husband and entered the mansion.
Daniel caught her wrist.
“Don't do this.”
Claire looked down at his hand.
Then slowly back at him.
“Take your hand off me.”
Something in her voice made him obey.
Claire entered the foyer.
Every step felt unreal.
Her wedding photograph was gone.
The silver frame that had stood on the console for eleven years had disappeared.
So had the portrait of her father.
In its place sat a photograph of Daniel and Vanessa at a charity gala.
Claire stared at it.
Vanessa came inside behind them.
“Daniel, we should tell her.”
Daniel spun around.
“No.”
Claire looked between them.
“Tell me what?”
Neither answered.
Then Claire noticed something else.
The antique walnut desk belonging to her father had been opened.
Papers covered its surface.
Legal papers.
Claire walked toward them.
Daniel moved quickly.
Too quickly.
He gathered the documents.
Claire saw only three words before he covered them.
MERCER HOLDINGS TRUST.
Her father's company.
Not Daniel's.
Her father's.
Claire remembered something her father had told her before he died.
His voice had been weak.
Morphine had made him drift in and out of consciousness.
But one sentence had been strangely clear.
“Don't sign anything Daniel gives you.”
At the time, Claire had assumed grief and medication were confusing him.
Now she wasn't so sure.
“What have you done?”
Daniel's expression hardened.
“Nothing.”
Claire laughed once.
It contained no humor.
“My father warned me about you.”
Daniel froze.
Vanessa looked at him sharply.
Claire saw it.
That tiny reaction.
Enough.
“What did you do to my father's company?”
Daniel stepped closer.
“You're exhausted.”
“Answer me.”
“You just buried your father.”
“Answer me!”
Rosa appeared at the doorway.
Her face was white.
Daniel looked toward her.
“Go home, Rosa.”
Rosa didn't move.
“I said go home.”
Then something remarkable happened.
The woman who had quietly served his family for decades stood upright.
“No.”
Daniel stared at her.
Rosa removed her apron.
She placed it on the floor.
Then she looked at Claire.
“Your father made me promise.”
Claire's heartbeat quickened.
“Promise what?”
Rosa swallowed.
“To tell you the truth if Daniel ever tried to remove you from this house.”
Daniel crossed the room.
“Enough.”
Rosa reached inside her blouse and removed a tiny brass key hanging from a chain around her neck.
Claire stared at it.
She recognized the key immediately.
It belonged to her father's private study.
The room had supposedly been sealed after his retirement.
Rosa placed the key in Claire's palm.
“Your father knew this day might come.”
Daniel lunged forward.
Claire closed her fist around the key.
“What is inside that room?”
Rosa whispered:
May you like
“Proof.”
And somewhere upstairs, a door suddenly slammed.
