Chapter 1: The Sound in the Kitchen
The Maid Shielded Her Little Girl From His Fiancée’s Blow—Then the Child Looked at the Millionaire and Whispered, “Daddy…”
I heard the crack of wood against bone before I understood what it was.
The front door had only just closed behind me. I was still holding my keys. The house should have been quiet—Victoria had said she would be out until evening, and the new maid, Grace, usually kept the child upstairs during the day. Instead there was a sharp, sickening impact, followed by a woman’s broken gasp and the high, terrified cry of a little girl.
I moved toward the kitchen without thinking.
The heavy wooden hockey stick struck Grace across the shoulder before she could pull Lily out of the way. She collapsed to her knees on the cold kitchen tile, wrapping her trembling body completely around the four-year-old.
“Please,” Grace gasped, fighting for breath. “Don’t hurt my child.”
Victoria stood over them in her spotless white designer dress, her knuckles white as she tightened her grip around the stick. A cold, cruel smile twisted her lips.
“Dead people keep secrets,” Victoria whispered.
She raised the stick high above her head once more.
I stepped into the doorway and the entire scene locked into place at once: my fiancée standing over the maid I had hired three months earlier, the stick still raised, the child sobbing beneath Grace’s body, Grace’s shoulder already beginning to darken where the wood had landed.
Victoria’s face drained of color the moment she saw me. The hockey stick slipped from her fingers and clattered against the tile.
“Nathan…” she said, the single word thin and shaking.
May you like
I did not look at her.
I looked at the woman on the floor and the little girl she was still trying to shield with her own body.
