Chapter 4 - The Truth About the Young Maid
While I was still drowning in the shock of the incriminating recording, light footsteps echoed in the hallway.
The study door creaked open. The young maid—the one I had threatened to fire just hours earlier—stood there holding a warm glass of water. She had changed into casual clothes instead of her maid uniform, but the smear of flour on her left cheek remained unwashed.
"Mr. Russo," she said softly, her voice steady and resolute, completely devoid of the usual submissive fear a servant held toward a notorious New York underworld kingpin.
I whipped around, my razor-sharp gaze locking onto her. "Who are you? Where did Rosa hire you from? How were you able to make Lucia laugh in minutes when the world's leading child psychologists failed for fourteen months?"
The girl stepped slowly into the room, placed the glass of water on the desk, and raised her head to look me straight in the eyes. Not a single flinch.
"My name is Elena Vance," she replied evenly. "And I'm not just an ordinary maid Rosa hired through an employment agency."
"Speak."
Elena took a deep breath. "Because fourteen months ago, I was the only person on the streets of Queens who witnessed that entire crash. I was a law intern at the office of the senior attorney—the man who kept the files in this safe for your wife."
I narrowed my eyes, my hand tightening once more. "What do you mean?"
"Isabella didn't just discover your money laundering, Dominic," Elena stepped closer, her voice filled with suppressed fury. "You personally signed an underground contract allowing a rival faction in the organization to reroute security control in Queens that day in exchange for shares in your major port development project. You knew your wife and children's schedule. You knew that route wasn't safe. Your ambition for expanded power indirectly pushed them straight into the tiger's jaws!"
"Shut your mouth!" I roared, slamming my hand down on the desk so hard the water glass rattled violently.
Yet Elena didn't back down an inch. She smiled bitterly.
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"You can kill me right now, Dominic. Just like you've liquidated anyone who dared stand in your way for the past fifteen years. But you can never hide this truth from your children. Especially Lucia. She is far smarter than you think. She heard that midnight argument through her bedroom door. And she knew exactly who sent that black truck tailing her mother and sisters."
Anger choked my throat, but it was matched by utter devastation. I staggered backward, my back hitting the cold, hard wall.
