Chapter 11
They left before dawn.
No convoy.
No public road show.
Just one black SUV, Mateo behind the wheel, Leo in the passenger seat, and Lily sleeping in the back with her head in Beatrice’s lap.
The mansion disappeared behind iron gates and morning fog.
Beatrice watched it vanish through the rear window.
She expected relief.
Instead, she felt grief.
Not for the house.
For the version of herself who had stayed invisible inside it.
That woman had bled on the kitchen floor.
But she had also stood up.
Leo looked back once.
“You okay?”
Beatrice touched Lily’s hair.
“No.”
He nodded.
Strangely, that comforted her.
The safe house sat on the edge of a cold lake in northern Wisconsin. It was not small, because Leo Rossi apparently did not understand small, but it was quiet. Wooden walls. Stone fireplace. Tall pines surrounding the property.
No marble.
No chandelier.
No cellar.
Lily liked that part best.
“Does it have secret bad doors?” she asked.
Mateo carried bags inside.
“No bad doors,” he said. “Only boring closets.”
Lily looked at him seriously.
“Check.”
Mateo did.
Every closet.
Every cabinet.
Under every bed.
By the time he finished, Lily had made him check the refrigerator too.
“No villains in the cheese drawer,” Mateo reported.
Lily nodded.
“Good.”
Beatrice laughed for the first time in two days.
Leo heard it from the doorway and went still.
He had heard people laugh at parties, in clubs, across expensive dinner tables.
But this laugh was tired, cracked, and real.
It warmed the room.
It scared him.
The first week at the lake house was not peaceful.
Trauma did not care about scenery.
Lily screamed in her sleep.
Beatrice woke from dreams of cellar doors.
Leo walked the perimeter at night with a gun in his hand.
Mateo took calls in low voices and returned with worse news each time.
Kensington had allies.
Victoria had hired lawyers.
Anonymous leaks painted Beatrice as an unstable employee who manipulated a grieving child.
One headline called her “the maid at the center of the Rossi scandal.”
Another used an old photo from her employee file.
Bad angle.
Bad lighting.
Cruel comments followed.
Beatrice found the articles by accident on Mateo’s tablet.
She read three before her hands started shaking.
Fat.
Obsessed.
Gold digger.
Crazy nanny.
Leo took the tablet from her.
“I told Mateo to lock news access.”
“I’m not a child.”
“No. You’re a target.”
Her eyes flashed.
“I have been a target my whole life, Mr. Rossi. People didn’t need your enemies for that.”
He absorbed the anger.
“You’re right.”
That disarmed her.
She hated when he did that.
Arguing with Leo was easier when he acted like a king.
Harder when he listened.
“I don’t want Lily seeing that,” Beatrice said.
“She won’t.”
“And I don’t want you making people disappear because they insulted me online.”
Leo paused.
“That was very specific.”
“Because I am getting to know you.”
His mouth almost smiled.
“I’ll behave.”
“You don’t know how.”
“No,” he admitted. “But I can learn.”
Across the room, Lily colored at the table.
She drew three stick figures.
A small girl.
A tall man.
A round woman with a big yellow circle around her.
“What’s that?” Leo asked.
Lily held up the picture.
“Bee is the sun.”
Beatrice looked away fast.
Leo saw.
That night, Beatrice stood outside on the back deck, wrapped in a blanket, staring at the lake.
Leo joined her.
“I can have the articles removed.”
“You can’t remove what people think.”
“No. But I can punish what they publish.”
She looked at him.
“That’s not the same as healing.”
He leaned on the railing.
“No one taught me healing.”
“No one taught me either.”
They stood in silence.
Finally, Leo said, “Elena chose you.”
Beatrice’s eyes filled.
“I keep thinking about that.”
“She saw something.”
“She saw an employee application.”
“She saw you.”
Beatrice shook her head.
“You make it sound romantic.”
“It isn’t romance. It’s judgment. Elena had good judgment.”
The lake wind moved between them.
Beatrice whispered, “What if I fail Lily?”
Leo answered immediately.
“You won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes,” he said. “I do.”
She turned.
His face was serious.
Too serious.
“You trust me too much,” she said.
“No. I should have trusted you sooner.”
Before she could answer, Mateo stepped onto the deck.
“We have a problem.”
Leo straightened.
“What now?”
Mateo held out his phone.
A video played.
Victoria Kensington, pale and elegant, speaking to the press outside a courthouse.
“Leo Rossi is dangerous,” she said tearfully. “And that maid has my stepdaughter under her control.”
Beatrice’s stomach dropped.
Then Victoria looked straight into the camera.
May you like
“Lily, sweetheart, if you can hear me, don’t be afraid. Mommy is coming to save you.”
Inside the house, Lily began to scream.
