Chapter 3
Victor stood back up to his full height, towering over the two kneeling women. The tension in the room was palpable, thick enough to suffocate. He reached up with his left hand, his fingers absently brushing against the heavy gold watch on his right wrist—a habit he only exhibited when calculating a difficult maneuver in business or war. He had not survived the brutal underworld of real estate development by trusting easily, and he certainly did not trust sudden accusations hurled by domestic staff.
“Get up,” Victor ordered, his tone flat and unyielding.
Eleanor rose first, moving with a practiced grace despite the trembling of her knees. She held baby Ethan firmly against her shoulder, patting his back in slow, rhythmic motions. The infant had finally quieted down, his eyelids drooping with exhaustion as he buried his face into the fabric of Eleanor’s dark red dress. Eleanor kept her gaze lowered, avoiding Victor’s piercing stare. She knew the mechanics of his mind; he was already piecing together timelines, motives, and vulnerabilities.
Clara scrambled to her feet a moment later, her yellow cleaning gloves still on her hands. She quickly peeled them off, tossing them onto a nearby velvet armchair as if the bright color was burning her skin. Her bare hands were shaking. She wiped her damp palms against the sides of her blue dress, suddenly hyper-aware of her precarious position. She was just a maid from a working-class neighborhood across town, entirely dependent on this job to support her ailing mother. Going up against a powerful man like Victor Sterling was professional suicide, yet staying silent felt morally impossible.
“I didn't lie,” Clara whispered, her voice barely audible above the hum of the central air conditioning. “I was dusting the console by the hallway archway. I saw everything clearly. Mrs. Sterling thought I was upstairs.”
Victor turned his head slowly, his dark eyes locking onto Clara’s. “You are playing a very dangerous game, Clara. Eleanor has been nothing but kind to you since you started working here two months ago. Why would she hurt our child?”
“I don't know her reasons,” Clara replied, her voice gaining a fraction of strength. “Ask her what she was saying to the baby before you walked in. Ask her why she looked so guilty.”
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Eleanor flinched as if struck. Her face turned pale against the dark red of her dress, and she instinctively stepped backward, putting more distance between herself and her husband. “Victor, she is manipulating the situation. She dropped a porcelain vase earlier, and I reprimanded her. This is her way of getting revenge.”
Victor looked between the two women, his expression unreadable. The silence stretched again, heavy and pregnant with unspoken truths. He slowly slid the gold watch up his forearm, his mind racing through the implications of both stories. One of them was lying, and in Victor’s world, deception carried a heavy price.
