Chapter 8
The surrounding monitors began showing earlier clips as David queued them.
Different nights.
Different rooms.
Same pattern.
Patricia taking Martina’s rabbit and placing it on a high shelf.
Rosa retrieving it after Patricia left.
Daniela standing outside her father’s study, turning away when Patricia approached.
Patricia speaking to a tutor, smiling, while Daniela sat rigid at a desk.
Rosa slipping a blanket around Martina after the child cried herself tired.
No one struck the children.
No graphic harm appeared.
But terror does not need a visible wound to be real.
Emiliano understood that now.
The mansion had been full of signals he mistook for grief.
He had blamed his late wife’s absence.
He had blamed adjustment.
He had blamed his own travel.
All true.
None sufficient.
Patricia had used grief like a curtain.
Rosa had been the one pulling children out from behind it.
Emiliano noticed something else.
In nearly every clip where Patricia cornered the girls, Rosa arrived shortly afterward.
Not by accident.
She had been monitoring them too.
Not through cameras.
Through instinct.
Through footsteps.
Through the small silence that comes before a child cries.
David pointed to one feed.
“Here. Two nights ago.”
On screen, Martina sat on the bedroom floor, hugging the rabbit. Patricia stood above her, arms folded. Rosa entered with folded towels, saw the scene, and immediately sat beside the child until Patricia left.
Emiliano’s eyes burned.
“She has been protecting them every day.”
David’s expression remained professional, but his voice softened.
“Yes, sir.”
Emiliano looked at Rosa on the live feed.
The housekeeper he had nearly allowed Patricia to dismiss.
May you like
The person his daughters trusted when they no longer trusted him.
Read the full story 👉 The archived feeds showed Rosa had been stepping between Patricia and the girls long before Emiliano faked the trip.
