Chapter 6 - The Butler's Betrayal
The brass handle of the nursery door rattled violently under Thomas’s frantic grip. Eleanor backed away slowly, clutching the old letter against her chest with one hand while instinctively shielding the sleeping crib with her body. The polite, deferential butler she had known for years was gone, replaced by a desperate operative willing to breach any boundary for his true master.
"Mrs. Vance, I know you're in there," Thomas’s voice hissed through the crack beneath the door, losing all pretense of polite servitude. "Open the door right now, or I will use the master key. You have no idea what you're meddling in."
Eleanor’s eyes darted around the brightly lit nursery. There was no secondary exit, no fire escape, only the large glass window overlooking the steep drop to the stone patio three stories below. Her heart hammered against her ribs as she heard the heavy metallic click of a master key sliding into the lock.
The door pushed open. Thomas stepped into the room, his gray suit immaculate, but his face twisted into an ugly, threatening sneer. His eyes immediately locked onto the paper clutched in Eleanor’s hand.
"Ah. So you found the family history," Thomas said, taking a slow, calculated step forward while reaching inside his jacket. "It’s a real shame, Mrs. Vance. A young mother, completely overwhelmed by her child's illness, making a tragic misstep near an open window. The narrative writes itself."
Eleanor felt the blood drain from her face, but a fierce, maternal adrenaline surged through her veins, replacing her terror with a cold, protective rage. She took another step backward, placing herself directly between the intruder and Leo’s crib.
"You're protecting a monster, Thomas," Eleanor said, her voice steady and echoing clearly in the quiet room. "David is downstairs with federal agents. You can't cover this up anymore."
Thomas laughed, a harsh, humorless sound, as his hand emerged from his jacket holding a sleek, black digital jammer that instantly cut off all cellular signals in the house. "Federal agents can't help you when they're locked in the basement vault, Mrs. Vance. And as for David..."
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Thomas lunged forward with terrifying speed, his hand clawing toward the incriminating letter, but before his fingers could graze the paper, the nursery window shattered inward with an explosive crash.
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