Chapter 5 - Someone Inside the Mansion Wanted Me Gone
Richard watched the footage fourteen times.
On the fifteenth, I finally shut the laptop.
“Enough.”
His eyes snapped toward me.
“Open it.”
“No.”
“Sophie.”
“You've watched it.”
“I need to see—”
“You need to think.”
His chair scraped backward.
I expected anger.
Instead, he walked toward the fireplace and stood there with both hands clenched.
“Dominic was my brother.”
“Cousin.”
“My mother raised him after his parents died. He was fourteen.”
I didn't say anything.
“He was there when Alex was born.”
Richard's voice became quieter.
“He held Max before I did because I was with Elena after the delivery.”
There are betrayals that hurt because an enemy attacks.
Then there are betrayals that rewrite the past.
This was the second kind.
“Could the footage be manipulated?” I asked.
“My people are checking.”
“Until then, don't confront him.”
Richard turned.
“You think I'm going to sit here?”
“I think whoever sent this wants you angry.”
He stared.
“They could have delivered the video anonymously to police years ago. They didn't.”
That got his attention.
“They sent it now,” I continued, “after I arrived.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I'm part of whatever game they're playing.”
His face hardened.
“No.”
“Richard—”
“You are not part of this.”
“Someone wrote Mrs. Lancaster on your warehouse wall.”
He looked away.
“Yes, I am.”
For the first time, I approached him without thinking about our no-touching rule.
I stopped a foot away.
“Don't make the mistake of deciding everything alone.”
He met my eyes.
“I've survived by doing exactly that.”
“And how's it working?”
That hurt.
I saw it.
But he didn't retaliate.
After several seconds, he said, “Poorly.”
The footage was authentic.
Security confirmed it the next morning.
But there was a problem.
The video cut off seventeen seconds after Dominic approached Elena's vehicle.
It did not show him touching the brakes.
Dominic could have been meeting her.
Warning her.
Following her.
We had proof he lied about seeing her that day.
Not proof he killed her.
Richard assigned a private security team to follow him.
I expected resistance when I insisted on maintaining normal routines with the boys.
Instead, Richard agreed.
So we did schoolwork.
Walked Bruno.
Built a Lego fortress Max insisted was “definitely not Daddy's house.”
Sunday pancakes improved slightly.
Richard learned how not to destroy eggs.
Alex began sitting beside me voluntarily.
Max had started calling me Soph instead of Sophie.
None of us discussed how meaningful that felt.
Then, one afternoon, I received a text.
UNKNOWN NUMBER:
Ask Richard what happened at Pier 19.
I deleted it.
Thirty seconds later another arrived.
ASK HIM WHY ELENA WAS LEAVING HIM.
My hands went cold.
A photograph appeared.
Elena carrying luggage.
Date stamped two days before her death.
I stared at it for a long time.
That evening, Richard came home after ten.
He looked exhausted.
I waited in the library.
“What is Pier 19?”
He stopped.
“Where did you hear that?”
“A message.”
His entire expression changed.
“Show me.”
I handed him the phone.
He read everything.
Then sat down slowly.
“Elena was leaving you.”
He didn't answer.
“Was she?”
“Yes.”
The answer hurt more than it should have.
Which was ridiculous.
Our marriage was fake.
His marriage to Elena was years before me.
Still, some stupid part of me had constructed the story of a perfect marriage destroyed by tragedy.
Reality was messier.
“Why?”
Richard stared at the floor.
“Because of me.”
I waited.
“I had promised her I would leave the criminal side of the family businesses.”
There it was.
The confirmation I'd never directly received.
“You didn't.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“My father died. There was instability. Rival groups were moving against us. I told myself I'd stay six months.”
“How long?”
“Four years.”
I exhaled.
“Elena threatened to take the boys.”
“She had every right.”
“What happened at Pier 19?”
“We argued.”
His eyes closed briefly.
“She told me she'd discovered something involving Dominic and Vincent Caruso. Payments. Shipments. She wouldn't explain until she had proof.”
“Then?”
“I accused her of using it as an excuse to leave.”
Richard's voice became rough.
“She said she was leaving because I had become a man who cared more about controlling fear than building a home.”
That sounded painfully accurate.
“The next morning she packed.”
“And then?”
“She died.”
Silence.
“Richard…”
“I spent three years believing our last real conversation was her telling me she no longer knew who I was.”
He looked up.
“And she was right.”
I wanted to tell him he had changed.
But I hadn't known him then.
So instead I said, “Maybe she was trying to make you change.”
His expression shifted.
Before he could respond, every light in the house went out.
Total darkness.
Then security alarms screamed.
Richard moved instantly.
“Stay here.”
“No.”
“Sophie.”
“The boys.”
We ran.
Emergency lights flickered red through the hallway.
Gunshots sounded outside.
Not close.
But close enough.
Richard shoved open the secure-wing door.
Maria was there with Max.
“Where's Alex?” I demanded.
Maria's face went white.
“I thought he was with you.”
My heart stopped.
Richard shouted into his radio.
“Find Alex!”
No response.
Signal jamming.
I ran toward the west hall.
“Sophie!”
I ignored Richard.
Alex went to Elena's room when frightened.
I knew that.
The hallway was dark.
“Alex!”
Nothing.
I reached Elena's room.
Empty.
Then Bruno barked.
The dog stood at the locked nursery door.
Scratching wildly.
“Alex?”
A faint sound.
“Sophie?”
He was inside.
“How did you get in?”
“Door was open.”
It shouldn't have been.
I pushed.
Locked.
Richard arrived behind me.
“Move.”
He threw his shoulder against it.
Nothing.
Again.
The frame cracked.
Third time, the lock broke.
We entered.
Alex crouched behind an old crib.
Richard grabbed him.
“You okay?”
Alex nodded shakily.
Then Bruno started growling.
Toward the closet.
Richard slowly drew a handgun.
My breath stopped.
He opened the door.
Empty.
But the back panel had been removed.
Behind it was a narrow service passage.
Someone had entered the nursery from inside the walls.
On the floor lay a small black device.
Richard picked it up.
A transmitter.
Beside it was something worse.
A photograph taken less than an hour earlier.
Me in the kitchen with Alex and Max.
Written across the bottom:
SHE'LL DIE LIKE ELENA.
Richard stared at the message.
Then at me.
For the first time since I met him, fear completely stripped away his composure.
Not fear for himself.
Fear for me.
“We're leaving,” he said.
“Where?”
“Somewhere nobody knows.”
But before we could move, a voice came through Richard's radio.
“Sir, we've detained someone at the south gate.”
“Who?”
The guard hesitated.
“You need to see this.”
Ten minutes later, we reached the security room.
A woman stood on camera surrounded by guards.
Long dark coat.
Rain-soaked hair.
Elegant.
Furious.
Richard stepped closer to the monitor.
His entire body went still.
“Who is she?” I whispered.
He didn't answer.
The woman looked directly into the camera.
Then she said something that made everyone in the room freeze.
“Tell Richard his wife didn't die in that car accident.”
My blood ran cold.
Richard gripped the desk.
May you like
The woman continued.
“Because Elena Lancaster was murdered somewhere else.”
