Chapter 1 - THE TRIP THAT NEVER HAPPENED
Forty-five minutes after pretending to leave Los Angeles for four days, I was secretly back inside my Bel-Air estate.
My name is Alexander Vance.
In Los Angeles, people knew me as the head of one of the city’s most feared crime families. I had armed security, powerful connections, and enough enemies to make privacy a necessity.
Yet inside my own home, I had failed to see what was happening to my daughters.
That morning, I kissed nine-year-old Valeria and six-year-old Sofia goodbye and told them I had business in Toronto.
“Four days,” I promised.
Sofia squeezed my hand.
“Do you really have to go again, Daddy?”
The question stayed with me even after I left.
The trip was fake.
My fiancée, Chloe, had spent weeks telling me jewelry, cash, and expensive perfume were disappearing. She blamed Marisol, our housekeeper of five years—the woman who had helped raise my daughters after their mother, Elena, died.
“She’s turning the girls against you,” Chloe had whispered.
I believed her enough to test it.
My security chief, Hector, secretly brought me back through a service entrance. Together, we entered the monitoring room behind the garage and watched more than thirty concealed cameras covering the estate’s common areas.
For fifteen minutes, nothing happened.
Then Chloe entered the living room.
Her face changed the moment she thought I was gone.
Valeria was reading beside the fireplace. Sofia held the worn stuffed rabbit Elena had given her before she died.
“How many times have I told you brats not to lounge around in here?”
Both girls jumped.
Not with surprise.
With recognition.
Chloe snatched Sofia’s rabbit and placed it beyond her reach.
“When your father isn’t here, what I say goes.”
Valeria silently stepped in front of her sister.
Then Marisol entered.
She positioned herself between Chloe and my daughters.
“They were only waiting for their tutor.”
Chloe’s expression hardened.
“You’re hired help. You’re not their mother. You’re nobody in this house.”
My daughters reached for each other’s hands.
That simple movement told me this had happened before.
Then Chloe grabbed Sofia’s wrist.
Marisol moved instantly.
She pulled Chloe’s hand away.
“Do not touch her.”
I came out of my chair.
Hector waited for my order.
May you like
Before I could give it, Chloe leaned close to Marisol.
And what she said stopped me colder than any gun ever had.
