Chapter 1 - YOU FIRST
“Don’t eat that. She put something in it.”
The bread stopped two inches from Vincent Moretti’s mouth.
A six-year-old girl stood beside his chair, one hand wrapped around his wrist, the other crushing a battered doll against her chest.
Every guard in his house had missed what she had seen.
“Who, Emma?”
Her eyes moved toward the hallway.
“Miss Celia.”
The woman he was supposed to marry in three months.
Vincent lowered the bread.
Across the dining room, Celia appeared beneath the archway in a cream silk blouse. She smiled until she saw Emma holding his arm.
“What’s going on?”
Vincent pushed the butter dish toward the empty place setting.
“You first.”
Celia looked at the bread.
Then at the child.
For one long second, she forgot to breathe.
Vincent had spent thirty-eight years learning how people looked when they were surprised, offended, or afraid.
This was fear.
“Vincent, that’s ridiculous.”
“Then it should be easy.”
Her fingers tightened around her phone.
Emma’s grip tightened, too.
Until that morning, Vincent had barely noticed the girl. Her mother, Maria Carter, had cleaned his house for almost five years. When her regular childcare fell through, Vincent had agreed to let Emma come to work with her.
Four days.
That was all it had taken a child to see something his cameras hadn’t.
Celia let out a short laugh.
“She’s six. Yesterday she told me her doll could hear through walls.”
“What did you put in the butter?”
“Nothing.”
Emma whispered, “It came from a little white bottle.”
Celia’s face changed.
Just a flicker.
Vincent saw it.
He set the bread down and stood.
“Frank.”
His head of security stepped inside.
“Take Emma to her mother. Nobody touches this table.”
Celia moved toward the dish.
“I’ll have the kitchen replace—”
“Leave it.”
The word stopped her.
Frank reached for Emma’s shoulder, but she ducked away and pressed against Vincent’s chair.
“Please don’t let her send Mommy downstairs.”
The dining room went still.
Vincent crouched so they were eye to eye.
“Why would she do that?”
Emma swallowed.
“She said Mommy had to clean your study before lunch.”
His study.
Locked. Alarmed. Off-limits to household staff unless he was inside.
Vincent straightened slowly.
At the doorway, Maria appeared with a cleaning cloth in her hand.
“Emma, honey, what did you—”
Then she saw the butter dish.
The bread.
Celia.
The cloth slipped from her fingers.
Before Vincent could ask why, his phone vibrated.
A message from his younger brother, Adrian.
DON’T LET MARIA LEAVE. SHE’S BEEN STEALING FROM YOU.
May you like
Vincent looked up.
Maria was already backing away from the door.
