Chapter 8 - THE NIGHT CASSANDRA DISAPPEARED
Cassandra was gone before the police arrived.
Her room had been emptied.
Her phone was disconnected.
Her car had left the garage twenty minutes earlier.
Daniel reviewed the security footage.
“She knew.”
Matteo stared at the screen.
“How?”
Daniel hesitated.
“Someone accessed the security system remotely.”
I looked at Matteo.
“Who had access?”
He swallowed.
“Cassandra. Daniel. Me.”
Daniel shook his head.
“And one former administrator.”
Matteo looked up.
“Who?”
Daniel's expression darkened.
“Adrian Vale.”
Cassandra's brother.
A former financial officer at Duca Holdings.
Matteo had fired him eight months earlier after discovering irregularities in company accounts.
My stomach tightened.
“Why would he help her?”
Daniel opened another file.
“Because Cassandra was transferring money to him.”
Matteo stared.
“How much?”
Daniel hesitated.
“Nearly four million dollars over two years.”
Silence.
The blue room had been part of something larger.
Cassandra wasn't simply a cruel household director.
She had been exploiting Matteo's grief and controlling Leah while helping her brother steal from the company.
The recordings had been deleted to conceal what happened in the nursery.
And now Cassandra was running.
Matteo turned toward me.
“Emily, I need you to take Leah somewhere safe.”
I looked at him.
“Where?”
“Anywhere you choose. I'll arrange protection.”
I thought of my mother.
Her hospital room.
The bills.
The injections.
Then I looked toward Leah's bedroom.
“I'm not leaving her with strangers.”
Matteo nodded.
“Then stay with her.”
I studied him.
“And you?”
His expression hardened.
“I'm going to find out what else Cassandra did.”
I stepped closer.
“Matteo.”
He looked at me.
“Don't let anger make you careless.”
For a moment, he seemed surprised.
Then he nodded.
“I won't.”
But as he walked away, I saw something in his eyes.
May you like
Not the cold confidence of a billionaire.
The terror of a father who had nearly lost his daughter without realizing it.
