Chapter 1 - THE PHOTOGRAPH MY DAUGHTER WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO FIND
Mia's next words almost brought me to my knees.
“Mommy keeps a picture of you with my daddy,” she whispered to Adrian Kane. “But she cries whenever she looks at it.”
The mansion fell silent.
Adrian's expression changed so dramatically that even his security chief, Gabriel Cross, took a step forward.
“What did you say, sweetheart?”
Mia hugged her stuffed elephant.
“You're in the picture with Daddy. Mommy keeps it in the blue box under her bed.”
My heart hammered.
I had never shown Mia that photograph. I had hidden it beneath old bills, medical records, and the few belongings I had managed to save after her father died.
Adrian slowly turned toward me.
“What's your name?”
I swallowed.
“Elena Hayes.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Hayes?”
I knew the exact moment he remembered.
Six years earlier, my husband, Benjamin Hayes, had worked as a financial controller for Kane Consolidated, the legitimate investment company connected to Adrian's empire.
Then Benjamin was accused of stealing twelve million dollars from a charitable foundation.
Three days later, I received news that he had died in a highway accident.
I was twenty-four, pregnant, and suddenly alone.
Since then, I had lived with one terrible belief: Adrian Kane had ordered the events that destroyed my husband.
And now I worked inside his house.
Adrian looked at Mia again.
“Was your father's name Benjamin?”
She nodded.
“Mommy says he was very smart.”
Something painful crossed Adrian's face.
“He was.”
I froze.
Mia smiled hopefully.
“So you knew him?”
Adrian didn't answer immediately.
Then he looked directly at me.
“Why didn't you tell me who you were?”
“Because I needed the job.”
That wasn't the entire truth.
I had accepted work in his mansion partly because I needed money and partly because I wanted to understand what had happened to Benjamin.
Adrian's expression hardened.
“Gabriel, clear the room.”
The guards withdrew.
I immediately reached for Mia.
“We should leave, Mr. Kane. I'm sorry she interrupted your meeting.”
“Stay.”
The single word stopped me.
But this time, Adrian wasn't speaking with the cold authority that terrified his employees.
He sounded shaken.
He crouched in front of Mia again.
“Did your mother tell you what happened to your father?”
Mia shook her head.
“She says he went to heaven before I was born.”
Adrian closed his eyes.
When he opened them, he looked at me with an expression I couldn't understand.
“Elena, Benjamin didn't steal that money.”
My fingers tightened around Mia's shoulder.
“What?”
“I discovered that months after he disappeared.”
My entire body went cold.
“Disappeared?”
Adrian stood.
“What do you mean?”
I stared at him.
“My husband died in a car accident.”
“No.”
His voice became dangerously quiet.
“Benjamin vanished after someone used his credentials to move twelve million dollars. We never found him.”
I could barely breathe.
Then Adrian asked a question that made the floor seem to disappear beneath my feet.
“Elena, who told you your husband was dead?”
I whispered the name.
“Victor Kane.”
Adrian's older cousin.
May you like
The man who managed his charitable foundation.
And the only person in that mansion Adrian had trusted since childhood.
