THE MAFIA BOSS WHO PRETENDED TO BE PARALYZED

I read the letter until the words blurred.

Richard Cross had known my name before I entered the mansion. He had known about my mother, my father, and the ledger. Somehow, he had also known that Julian would one day pretend to be powerless.

The letter suggested that my employment had not been an accident.

But who had arranged it?

Margaret insisted she had brought me into the mansion because she wanted to find my father's records. She admitted that she had used a false reference, but she denied knowing about Richard's plan.

"I never spoke to him about Elena," she said. "Not directly."

"Could he have contacted someone who worked for you?"

"Yes."

"Could Arthur have arranged my employment without telling you?"

She hesitated.

"He had access to the staffing records. He also knew which agencies supplied temporary household employees."

I turned toward Julian.

"Did you investigate the agency that supposedly referred me?"

"Yes. It was a legitimate agency, but the reference attached to your application was fabricated. Someone had used its name without authorization."

"Who submitted it?"

"The file was uploaded through the mansion's administrative office."

"Whose credentials were used?"

Julian's attorney checked the record.

"Arthur Bell's."

The room went silent.

Arthur had been involved in the payments that kept my mother hidden. His credentials had been used to submit my false reference. He had access to the Black Veil accounts and had disappeared shortly before the staged attack.

The pattern was becoming difficult to ignore.

But we still needed evidence that he had acted on Richard's instructions.

The investigators found a message between Arthur and an unknown contact.

The girl has entered the house. Cross believes she is an ordinary employee. The key is still with her.

The reply read:

Keep her close. Do not tell her what she is carrying.

A second message had been deleted, but a fragment remained in the recovered data.

If she discovers the ledger before the succession transfer, eliminate—

The sentence ended there.

My hands went cold.

Julian stood up so quickly that his chair struck the wall.

"Arthur put her in danger."

"Possibly," his attorney said. "But we need to authenticate the messages and identify the recipient before making a definitive claim."

Julian turned toward me.

"You're leaving the mansion."

I stared at him.

"What?"

"We have reason to believe someone deliberately placed you here. You're a target."

"You don't get to decide where I live."

"This isn't about controlling you."

"It sounds exactly like it."

He closed his eyes for a moment.

Then he took a breath.

"You're right. I should have asked what you wanted."

The correction mattered, even if it didn't erase the fear that had settled in my chest.

I chose to stay temporarily at my mother's apartment, where a support service had arranged security and where the authorities could reach us easily. Julian offered to pay for the arrangements, but I insisted that the assistance be handled transparently and independently.

He agreed.

Before I left, I returned to the mansion's library to collect my belongings. I had worked there for three months, and every room held memories I no longer knew how to interpret. The kitchen where I prepared Julian's meals. The bedroom where I helped him dress. The garden where he sometimes sat silently beneath the trees.

Had any of those moments been real?

I found him waiting by the front entrance.

"I won't ask you to forgive me," he said.

"Good."

"I want you to know that when you told me I deserved someone who cared, I didn't think you were foolish. I thought you were the first person in years who had looked at me without calculating what I could do for them."

I swallowed.

"That doesn't make your test acceptable."

"I know."

He stepped aside, leaving the doorway clear.

"You can leave whenever you want, Elena. No one here will stop you."

I walked past him.

Outside, Margaret waited beside the car arranged by the support service. She opened the passenger door but didn't speak until we were on the road.

"I owe you the truth," she said.

I looked at her.

"Then start talking."

She explained that Richard had contacted her shortly before my employment application arrived. He had claimed that Julian was in danger and that the only way to protect him was to bring someone into the household who could recognize the signs of a larger betrayal.

Margaret had believed him.

She had provided the false reference, convinced that the arrangement would allow her to watch both Julian and the people around him.

"But I never knew he wanted to use you as leverage," she said. "I swear to you."

"Why didn't you tell me about the ledger?"

"Because Richard said the fewer people who knew, the safer you would be."

I stared out the window.

"Everyone keeps telling me they lied to protect me."

Margaret lowered her eyes.

"I know. And I'm beginning to understand how little protection that offered."

When we arrived at the apartment, my mother was waiting by the window. She had been reading one of the letters I had brought from the mansion.

She looked up when I entered.

"Elena, there's something I need to tell you."