PART 2
For several seconds, I could not make sense of the photograph.
It showed a gray sedan passing through the east service gate at 6:42 on a rainy Tuesday morning.
The date was three weeks earlier.
I remembered that morning.
Sophie had spilled apple juice down the front of her yellow sweater.
I had been late, irritated with myself, and too busy trying to find a clean shirt in the staff laundry room to notice anything unusual outside.
But the car in the photograph was familiar.
Painfully familiar.
I had seen it parked across from my apartment.
I had seen it crawl past Sophie’s daycare.
Once, I had seen it in the reflection of a pharmacy window and convinced myself I was imagining things.
My knees weakened.
Dominic pushed the folder farther across the desk.
“Is that his car?”
I stared at it.
“I think so.”
“Think?”
“He changes cars sometimes.”
Marco’s eyebrows drew together.
“He changes cars?”
I immediately regretted saying it.
Dominic noticed.
Of course he did.
He noticed everything.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
I looked down at Sophie.
She was sitting by the fireplace with her rabbit in her lap, humming softly, unaware that the adults in the room had just entered a conversation that might change everything.
“I don’t know.”
Dominic’s gaze stayed on me.
“That answer is becoming a habit.”
Something defensive rose inside me.
“I didn’t ask you to investigate my life.”
“No.”
He tapped the photograph once.
“But someone brought your life through my gate.”
That silenced me.
Marco leaned closer to the page.
“The authorization was entered manually,” he said.
“Not through the regular visitor system.”
Dominic looked at him.
“Whose credentials?”
Marco hesitated.
“That’s the problem.”
My stomach tightened.
Dominic’s voice dropped.
“Whose?”
Marco slid another sheet from the folder.
“Yours.”
The room became so quiet I could hear the clock over the mantel.
Dominic did not react immediately.
Then he reached for the page.
“My credentials were used?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Six forty-one that morning.”
“From where?”
“The administrative terminal in the downstairs office.”
I looked between them.
“Could someone have guessed your password?”
Dominic’s eyes remained on the record.
“No.”
The certainty in his answer frightened me more than uncertainty would have.
Marco added, “The system also requires a physical access card.”
I swallowed.
“So someone had both?”
Dominic looked up.
“Yes.”
Sophie suddenly lifted her rabbit.
“He wants tea.”
All three of us turned toward her.
The contrast was almost unbearable.
Dominic’s face softened by the smallest degree.
“Marco.”
The older man understood immediately.
“I’ll ask Mrs.
Bell to take Sophie to the kitchen.”
“No.”
The word left me too quickly.
Sophie looked at me.
I crossed the room and crouched beside her.
“Baby, do you want to go make cookies with Mrs.
Bell?”
Her face brightened.
“With sprinkles?”
“Probably too many.”
She considered this seriously.
“Okay.”
When Mrs.
Bell arrived a few minutes later, Sophie took her hand and skipped toward the door.
Then she stopped.
She turned back toward Dominic.
“Are you going to make Mommy not scared?”
I closed my eyes.
Dominic didn’t answer immediately.
Then he crouched so he was closer to her height.
“I’m going to help your mommy find out what happened.”
Sophie seemed satisfied with that.
She pointed one tiny finger at him.
“No yelling.”
For the first time all morning, Marco almost smiled.
Dominic nodded solemnly.
“No yelling.”
Sophie left.
The door closed.
The room changed.
Dominic straightened.
“Now.”
His gaze moved to me.
“Who is he?”
There was nowhere left to hide.
I sat in the chair Sophie had occupied earlier.
My hands felt cold.
“His name is Evan Cole.”
Neither man reacted.
I continued.
“He’s Sophie’s father.”
Dominic went very still.
Marco looked away politely.
I stared at the rug.
“We were together for almost four years.”
“Were you married?”
Dominic asked.
“No.”
“What happened?”
I almost laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because the question sounded so simple.
What happened?
How do you explain years of slowly learning to fear someone without making yourself sound foolish for staying?
“He wasn’t always frightening.”
Dominic said nothing.
That helped.
So I kept going.
“When I met Evan, he was charming.
Patient.
He remembered things.
My coffee order.
My mother’s birthday.
The name of a teacher I hated in high school.”
I rubbed my thumb against my palm.
“He made attention feel like love.”
My voice tightened.
“Then attention became questions.”
Where are you?
Who are you with?
Why did you take so long?
Why didn’t you answer?
“After Sophie was born, it got worse.”
Dominic’s expression hardened.
“Did he hurt you?”
I looked up sharply.
“No.”
The answer came automatically.
Then I corrected myself.
“Not the way you mean.”
Dominic did not move.
“He never hit me.”
I hated how rehearsed that sentence sounded.
“He punched walls.
Broke things.
Stood in doorways when I tried to leave arguments.”
My mouth went dry.
“Once he took my phone because he said I needed to learn how much I depended on people outside our relationship.”
Marco’s jaw tightened.
I continued before I lost the courage.
“When Sophie was eighteen months old, I left.”
“How?”
“I waited until he went away for work.
I packed two bags.
My sister drove us to another city.”
“You have a sister?”
“Yes.”
“Where is she?”
“Seattle.”
“Does Evan know?”
“He knows she lives there.
Not her address.”
Dominic walked toward the window.
“And he found you again.”
“Six months later.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
That was the truth.
“He started sending emails.
Then letters.
Then he appeared outside the grocery store.”
“What did the police say?”
“I had no proof he had threatened me.”
“You said Sophie heard him say this house wouldn’t keep you safe.”
“That was recent.”
“And you didn’t report it.”
I looked at him.
“No.”
“Why?”
My embarrassment became anger.
“Because I have reported things before.”
Dominic turned.
I continued.
“Do you know what happens when someone knows exactly how far he can go without crossing the line people can easily prove?”
He said nothing.
“You show someone twenty messages.
They read them and say he hasn’t threatened to hurt you.”
My voice shook.
“You say he followed you.
He says it was coincidence.”
I looked toward the closed door Sophie had disappeared through.
“You say you’re scared, and everyone wants to know what he did.”
I swallowed.
“And sometimes the truth is that you’re scared because you know what he might do.”
The anger left Dominic’s face.
Not completely.
But enough.
Marco cleared his throat quietly.
“Do you have the messages?”
“Some.”
“Bring them tomorrow,” Dominic said.
I stiffened.
“You said you wouldn’t send anyone after him.”
“I won’t.”
“Then why—”
“Because if he entered this property using my credentials, your situation and mine are now connected.”
His voice was calm.
“This isn’t revenge.”
He tapped the folder.
“This is a security breach.”
I hated that I understood the distinction.
Dominic sat behind the desk again.
“Tell me about Evan’s work.”
“He does private contracting.”
“What kind?”
“Security systems.
Corporate buildings.
Residential properties.”
Marco and Dominic exchanged a look.
My stomach sank.
“What?”
Marco spoke first.
“He understands access systems.”
“Yes.”
“Cameras?”
“Yes.”
“Alarm installation?”
“Yes.”
My hands started trembling.
Dominic leaned back.
“So Evan Cole knows security systems, has followed you before, knows where you work, and somehow entered this estate using my access credentials.”
Said aloud, it sounded much worse.
“I didn’t know he came inside.”
“That isn’t criticism.”
The words surprised me.
Dominic looked at the photograph again.
“It’s a fact.”
That afternoon, the estate changed.
Not visibly.
There were no men running through hallways.
No dramatic lockdown.
The gardens remained wet from the rain.
Lunch was served at one.
The kitchen staff argued about whether the soup needed more salt.
Sophie returned from baking cookies with green icing in her hair.
But underneath the ordinary rhythm, something shifted.
Marco quietly reviewed staff schedules.
Two security technicians examined the downstairs office.
Access codes were changed.
Nothing was announced.
Nobody was accused.
Dominic had apparently meant what he said about not creating chaos.
I should have felt relieved.
Instead, I felt watched.
Not by Evan.
By possibility.
Every employee suddenly became someone who might have opened a gate.
Mrs.
Bell?
Impossible.
Daniel from maintenance?
He had brought Sophie a wooden puzzle for her birthday.
Lena from the kitchen?
She knew every detail of my divorce-that-wasn’t-a-divorce.
Thomas the groundskeeper?
He barely spoke to anyone.
Fear makes suspicion greedy.
It eats everyone.
By four o’clock, I could not stand it anymore.
I found Dominic in the library.
He was standing beside a table covered in printed records.
“I’m going home.”
His head lifted immediately.
“No.”
I stared at him.
“Excuse me?”
“You and Sophie stay here tonight.”
The sentence was so direct that irritation overcame fear.
“You don’t decide where we sleep.”
“No.”
He set down the paper.
“But Evan knows your address.”
“I’ve slept there every night for a year.”
“And now we know he entered this estate.”
“That doesn’t automatically mean I’m in more danger tonight.”
“No.”
His expression remained maddeningly calm.
“It means we know more tonight.”
I folded my arms.
“I am not moving into your house because you found one visitor record.”
“Staff apartment.”
“I have a home.”
“Where the locks were installed by your former partner’s industry.”
I froze.
“That’s not fair.”
“It isn’t supposed to be fair.”
For once, there was no authority in his tone.
Only concern.
That somehow made me angrier.
“You think because you have gates and cameras, you understand what safe means.”
Dominic’s face changed.
I regretted the words immediately.
But I continued anyway.
“You live like nobody enters your world without permission.”
His eyes became distant.
“That hasn’t always been true.”
Something about his voice stopped me.
For two years, I had known almost nothing personal about Dominic Valente.
There were stories, of course.
Staff always had stories.
His father had built the Valente shipping business.
His older brother had died young.
His mother lived in Italy most of the year.
Dominic had once been engaged.
Or married.
Or neither.
Depending on which employee was telling the story.
I looked at him.
“What happened?”
He gave me the smallest smile.
“You don’t want me asking personal questions, but you ask them easily.”
I almost apologized.
Instead, I said, “Fair.”
He looked back at the records.
“My brother died because someone we trusted sold information about where he would be.”
My breath caught.
Dominic’s expression stayed controlled.
“It was years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I.”
He straightened the stack of pages.
“That’s why I’m asking you to stay.”
Not ordering.
Asking.
The difference mattered.
I looked through the library doors toward the hall where Sophie’s laughter drifted faintly from the kitchen.
“One night.”
Dominic nodded.
“One night.”
The staff apartment on the west side of the property had two bedrooms and a small sitting room.
I had slept there before when storms made driving difficult.
Sophie treated it like a vacation.
She jumped on the bed until I told her to stop.
Then she jumped three more times because she knew I was too tired to argue.
At seven, Mrs.
Bell brought us dinner.
At eight, Sophie demanded two stories.
At eight-thirty, she asked if the bad man could climb the estate wall.
My heart broke quietly.
“No, baby.”
“Why?”
“Because the wall is very tall.”
She considered this.
“Dominic is tall too.”
I laughed despite myself.
“Yes.”
“Is he taller than the wall?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
She sounded disappointed.
I tucked the blanket under her chin.
“Sweetheart?”
“Mmm?”
“If you ever see Evan—”
She frowned.
“The bad man?”
I hated that those words had become his name.
“If you ever see him, you come straight to me.
Or Mrs.
Bell.
Or Marco.”
“Or Dominic?”
I hesitated.
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
“And you don’t talk to him alone.”
Her eyes became serious.
“Because he makes you sad?”
I brushed hair away from her forehead.
“Because grown-ups sometimes have problems that children shouldn’t have to solve.”
“I solved the picture.”
I smiled weakly.
“You did.”
“Did it help?”
I looked toward the dark window.
“Yes.”
That answer surprised me.
“Yes, Sophie.
It helped.”
She closed her eyes.
Five minutes later, she was asleep.
I was not.
At ten-fifteen, someone knocked softly.
My whole body tensed.
“Who is it?”
“Marco.”
I opened the door.
He held a tablet.
“Mr.
Valente asked if you were awake.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing immediate.”
That phrase did not comfort me.
“What does he want?”
“To show you something.”
I looked back at Sophie.
Mrs.
Bell appeared from down the hall.
“I’ll sit with her.”
Apparently everyone had already arranged my evening without asking.
Ten minutes later, I was back in Dominic’s study.
This time, only one lamp was on.
The crayon drawing still lay on the desk.
Seeing it there made me strangely emotional.
Dominic turned his laptop toward me.
“We found where the access authorization came from.”
“The downstairs office.”
“No.”
He clicked something.
“The office terminal was only used to approve it.”
I frowned.
“The request originated outside.”
“Someone sent it into the system remotely.”
“Evan?”
“We don’t know.”
The screen displayed a list of numbers and technical information I could not understand.
Dominic continued.
“The important part is the time.”
I looked at the timestamp.
6:31 a.m.
Then at the gate photograph.
6:42.
“He requested entry eleven minutes before arriving?”
“Yes.”
“So he expected approval.”
“Yes.”
My chest tightened.
“Someone was waiting.”
“That’s what it looks like.”
I sank into the chair.
“Who was working?”
Marco answered.
“Seventeen employees had access to the downstairs office that morning.”
Seventeen.
Far too many.
Dominic added, “But only four were physically inside the administrative corridor during those eleven minutes.”
“Who?”
He slid a page toward me.
The first name meant nothing.
Caleb Morris, accounting.
The second made my stomach tighten.
Daniel Price, maintenance.
The third was Lena Ortiz from the kitchen office.
And the fourth—
I stopped.
“No.”
Dominic watched me.
I read the name again.
Miriam Bell.
Mrs.
Bell.
The woman sitting beside my sleeping daughter.
I stood so quickly the chair scraped backward.
Dominic stood too.
“Wait.”
“Sophie.”
“Marco already called the apartment.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“She’s fine.”
I grabbed my phone.
“Call again.”
Dominic did.
Mrs.
Bell answered.
Her face appeared on video.
Behind her, Sophie slept peacefully.
“Everything all right?” she whispered.
Dominic looked at me.
I nodded shakily.
“Yes,” I said.
“Sorry.
Just checking.”
Mrs.
Bell smiled.
“She kicked the blanket off again.”
“That’s normal.”
“I know.”
The call ended.
I stood there feeling foolish.
Dominic did not comment.
“Being in the corridor doesn’t mean she did anything,” he said.
“I know.”
“None of the four are suspects.”
“I know.”
But my hands would not stop shaking.
Then Marco said, “There’s something else.”
I almost laughed.
Of course there was.
He placed a printed photograph beside the employee list.
It showed the interior of the administrative hallway.
Daniel the maintenance worker stood near a supply closet.
Lena carried a tray.
Mrs.
Bell was walking toward the kitchen.
And at the far end of the hallway—
A woman in a dark coat stood beside the office door.
Her face was turned away from the camera.
“Who is she?”
I asked.
“We don’t know.”
Dominic looked at Marco.
“Visitor?”
“No visitor badge.”
“Employee?”
“No one recognizes the coat.”
I leaned closer.
There was something familiar about her.
Not her face.
Her posture.
The way she held her left arm close to her body.
I felt a strange pressure behind my eyes.
“Can you enlarge it?”
Marco zoomed in.
The image blurred slightly.
The woman wore a narrow silver bracelet.
Three tiny circles hung from it.
My heart stopped.
I knew that bracelet.
I had given it to my younger sister on her twenty-fifth birthday.
“No.”
Dominic looked at me.
“What?”
I pointed at the screen.
“That’s my sister.”
Silence.
Marco frowned.
“You said your sister lives in Seattle.”
“She does.”
“What’s her name?”
“Rachel.”
Dominic’s expression sharpened.
“Rachel what?”
“Rachel Mercer.”
Marco immediately started typing.
I barely noticed.
My thoughts were spinning.
Rachel had not visited me in eight months.
She had never been to the estate.
As far as I knew, she had never met Dominic.
Yet there she was.
Inside his private administrative corridor.
Minutes before Evan’s car entered the property.
“That can’t be her,” I whispered.
Dominic studied the photograph.
“You’re certain about the bracelet?”
“My mother gave me two identical ones.”
I touched my wrist without thinking.
I had lost mine years ago.
“Rachel still wears hers.”
Marco’s fingers stopped over the keyboard.
He looked at me strangely.
“What?”
He turned the screen.
There was a travel record.
A flight from Seattle to our city.
Rachel Mercer.
Arrival: the previous evening.
Return: two days later.
Three weeks ago.
I stared at it.
“She was here.”
Dominic’s voice was quiet.
“Apparently.”
“She didn’t tell me.”
“Do you speak often?”
“Every week.”
My chest hurt.
“Sometimes every day.”
The room tilted slightly.
Why would Rachel come here without telling me?
Why would she enter Dominic’s estate?
And how?
Dominic watched me carefully.
“Call her.”
I looked up.
“Now?”
“Yes.”
I hesitated.
“If she helped Evan—”
“We don’t know that.”
His tone was firm.
“Do not decide what happened before you ask.”
He was right.
I hated that he was right.
I dialed.
Rachel answered after six rings.
“Hey.”
Her voice sounded sleepy.
Normal.
Too normal.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
I looked at Dominic.
He turned away slightly, giving me what privacy he could while remaining ten feet away.
“Rachel, I need to ask you something strange.”
“Okay.”
“Were you here three weeks ago?”
Silence.
Not static.
Silence.
My throat tightened.
“Rachel?”
“Why are you asking?”
My stomach sank.
“You were.”
Another pause.
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It was complicated.”
Everyone’s favorite word.
“What were you doing at the Valente estate?”
This time the silence lasted so long that I checked whether the call had disconnected.
Finally, Rachel whispered, “How do you know that?”
The question felt like a confession.
“I saw a photograph.”
“Oh God.”
“Rachel.”
My voice broke.
“Did you let Evan in?”
“No.”
The answer came immediately.
Strongly.
“No.
Absolutely not.”
“Then what were you doing here?”
“I can’t talk about this on the phone.”
I laughed once, bitterly.
“You flew across the country, came to my workplace without telling me, and now you can’t talk?”
“Claire, listen to me.”
Her voice had changed.
She was afraid.
Not defensive.
Afraid.
“You need to leave there.”
I stared at Dominic.
“What?”
“Take Sophie and leave.”
“Why?”
“I can’t explain.”
“Try.”
Rachel lowered her voice.
“Not around Dominic.”
My pulse stumbled.
Across the room, Dominic must have seen something in my face.
He did not approach.
“Rachel, what are you talking about?”
“You don’t know who you’re working for.”
I felt cold.
“I’ve worked here for two years.”
“That doesn’t mean you know him.”
My eyes moved toward Dominic.
He stood absolutely still.
“Did Dominic do something to you?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Rachel exhaled.
“I came because Evan contacted me.”
My knees weakened.
“What?”
“He called me about a month ago.”
“Why?”
“He said he had information about you.”
I gripped the phone.
“You should have told me.”
“I know.”
“What information?”
“He said you were in danger.”
I almost laughed.
“From him?”
“No.”
Rachel hesitated.
“From someone at the estate.”
I looked at Dominic again.
“What did he say?”
“He said someone connected to Dominic had been asking questions about you.”
“What kind of questions?”
“Where you lived.
Sophie’s daycare.
Your schedule.”
My stomach turned.
“Why would Evan care?”
“That’s what I wanted to know.”
Rachel’s voice shook.
“So I agreed to meet him.”
“You met Evan?”
“Yes.”
“After everything?”
“I thought I was protecting you.”
Anger rose in me.
“You thought protecting me meant secretly meeting the man I left?”
“I made a mistake.”
“No kidding.”
Dominic looked down.
I could tell from his posture he had heard enough to understand the direction of the conversation.
Rachel continued.
“Evan gave me a visitor code.”
My breath caught.
“For the estate?”
“Yes.”
“Where did he get it?”
“He said someone inside gave it to him.”
My mouth went dry.
“So you came here.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To find out whether he was telling the truth.”
“What did you do?”
“I went into an office.”
I looked at the security image.
“You were in the administrative corridor at 6:31.”
“I know.”
“What did you find?”
Rachel stopped.
That pause felt different.
Heavier.
“What did you find?”
She whispered, “A file.”
“What file?”
“Yours.”
The word barely registered.
“My personnel file?”
“No.”
Rachel’s voice became smaller.
“It wasn’t an employee file.”
I sat down slowly.
“What was it?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“Rachel.”
“It had photographs.”
My skin prickled.
“Of what?”
“You.”
The room disappeared around me.
“You walking Sophie to daycare.”
My hand began to shake.
“You leaving your apartment.”
I could barely breathe.
“You at the grocery store.”
She started crying softly.
“And photos from before you ever started working there.”
Dominic moved toward me.
I raised one hand.
Stay back.
He stopped.
Rachel continued.
“There were dates.
Addresses.
Notes.”
“Whose office?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were inside the estate.
Whose office?”
“It didn’t have a name.”
“Where?”
“Downstairs.
Near the service corridor.”
Marco’s face changed.
He looked at Dominic.
Dominic’s expression went blank.
Too blank.
“What?”
I asked.
Neither answered.
“Dominic.”
He looked at Marco.
“Show me the old floor plan.”
Marco opened something on his tablet.
His face went pale.
“What is it?”
Dominic stepped beside me.
“There used to be a records room behind that corridor.”
“Used to?”
“It was closed four years ago.”
“Why?”
“My father used it.”
The word father changed the atmosphere.
Dominic’s father had been dead for five years.
Rachel was still talking through the phone.
“I took pictures.”
“Send them.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“I deleted them.”
My heart sank.
“Of course you did.”
“Claire, please.”
“Why would you delete them?”
“Because Evan told me to.”
I stood.
“Rachel.”
“I know.”
Her voice cracked.
“I know how it sounds.”
“Then why?”
“Because after I left, he called me.”
“Evan?”
“Yes.”
“He said if I kept the pictures, whoever owned that file would know I had them.”
A terrible thought formed.
“How?”
“He said there were tracking marks on the pages.”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed.
“What kind?” he asked.
Rachel heard him.
She went silent.
“Claire.”
“It’s okay.”
“No.”
Her fear sharpened.
“He’s there?”
“Yes.”
“I told you not to talk around him.”
“Rachel, Dominic is standing in front of me looking at the same security record that proves someone used his credentials.”
Silence.
Then Rachel whispered something I almost missed.
“Maybe they were never stolen.”
I stared at Dominic.
He stared back.
I felt the ground shift beneath everything I thought I understood.
Dominic spoke quietly.
“Ask her what date was on the file.”
I repeated the question.
Rachel sniffed.
“I don’t remember.”
“Try.”
There was a long pause.
Then she said, “The first page was old.”
“How old?”
“I think four years.”
My heart stopped.
Four years.
I had worked for Dominic for two.
Marco understood before I did.
He slowly lowered the tablet.
I whispered, “That’s impossible.”
Rachel continued.
“There was a picture of you pregnant.”
I stopped breathing.
Sophie was three.
The photo would have been taken before she was born.
Before I moved to this city.
Before I knew the Valente name.
Before Dominic Valente had any reason to know I existed.
I looked at him.
For the first time since I had walked into his study that morning, Dominic looked genuinely shaken.
Not angry.
Not controlled.
Shaken.
“I have never seen those photographs,” he said.
I wanted to believe him.
Maybe part of me already did.
But belief had become expensive.
“Your father’s records room.”
“Yes.”
“Your estate.”
“Yes.”
“Your security system.”
“Yes.”
“And a file about me existed here before I worked for you.”
His jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
Nobody spoke.
Then Marco suddenly stood.
“I need to check something.”
He left without waiting for permission.
Dominic walked toward the desk.
“Claire.”
I stepped back.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
“I didn’t know.”
“I know you’re saying that.”
“It’s true.”
“I don’t know what’s true anymore.”
My phone remained pressed to my ear.
Rachel whispered, “Claire?”
“I’m here.”
“There’s something else.”
I almost told her I couldn’t take anything else.
Instead, I closed my eyes.
“What?”
“When I found the file, there was a name written inside the cover.”
“Whose?”
“I thought it was the person who made it.”
My throat tightened.
“What name?”
Rachel took a breath.
“Michael Vale.”
Dominic’s face changed.
Not subtly.
Not this time.
He went pale.
The phone nearly slipped from my hand.
“You know that name.”
Dominic said nothing.
“Who is Michael Vale?”
He slowly sat down.
For a man like Dominic Valente, sitting looked almost like collapse.
“That was my brother’s name.”
My breath stopped.
The brother Dominic had told me about only hours earlier.
The brother who had died because someone had sold information about where he would be.
Rachel whispered through the phone.
“Claire, are you still there?”
I stared at Dominic.
His brother had been dead for years.
Yet somehow he had kept a file on me.
Photographs.
Addresses.
Records.
Pictures taken before Sophie was born.
Before I had ever stepped through the Valente gates.
And suddenly Sophie’s innocent question from that morning returned to me.
Can you make the bad man disappear?
I had assumed the story began with Evan.
I had assumed the danger had followed me into the estate.
But what if I had been wrong?
What if the reason Evan knew about this place was not because he had followed me here?
What if this place had been connected to me first?
The study door opened.
Marco stood there holding an old leather ledger.
His face told me the answer was not going to make anything simpler.
“Dominic.”
Dominic looked up.
Marco placed the ledger on the desk.
“I found the archived visitor book from your brother’s office.”
He opened it carefully.
The pages were yellowed.
Names.
Dates.
Appointments.
Dominic turned several pages.
Then stopped.
His eyes lifted to mine.
I stepped closer.
On a line dated almost four years earlier was a visitor’s name written in blue ink.
A name I knew better than my own.
Evan Cole.
My knees went weak.
Beside his name, under purpose of visit, someone had written only three words.
REGARDING CLAIRE MERCER.
I stared at the page.
Four years ago, I had still been living with Evan.
I had never met Dominic.
I had never worked at this estate.
Yet Evan had come here.
To meet Dominic’s brother.
About me.
Dominic slowly turned to the next page.
There was one more entry.
Two days later.
Same visitor.
Evan Cole.
But this time, the handwritten note beside his name was different.
Dominic read it once.
Then again.
His expression became impossible to read.
“What does it say?”
I whispered.
He looked at me.
“It says Michael refused him.”
“Refused him what?”
Dominic didn’t answer.
Marco pointed to the bottom of the page.
“There’s an attached reference number.”
He searched through the ledger until he found a folded envelope tucked into the back cover.
It had been sealed years ago.
Across the front, in faded black ink, someone had written:
FOR DOMINIC ONLY — IF CLAIRE MERCER EVER COMES TO THIS HOUSE.
Nobody moved.
The room seemed to narrow around that envelope.
My name.
Written by a dead man.
Years before I ever knew this place existed.
Dominic reached for it.
Then stopped.
He looked at me instead.
Whatever was inside might explain why his brother had been watching me.
Why Evan had visited.
Why someone had preserved photographs of my life.
And perhaps why, two years after Michael Valente’s death, I had somehow ended up working in his family’s home.
Dominic slid the sealed envelope across the desk toward me.
“You should open it.”
I stared at my name on the front.
For the first time that day, I no longer knew which frightened me more—
the man outside the gates,
or the secret that had apparently been waiting inside them for years.
END OF PART 2 – LIKE, SHARE AND COMMENT "YES" IF YOU WANT TO READ PART 3
Source: Stories of Destiny · Thanh Thanh
