Chapter 2
The camera shutdown changed everything.
A moment of anger could be explained.
A disabled security system the day before could not.
Nico ordered the garage sealed.
Not dramatically.
No shouting.
No guns drawn.
The estate staff simply closed the vehicle gate, locked the private elevator controls, and collected access cards.
Gavin watched it happen.
His expression hardened.
“You're holding us prisoner now?”
Nico looked at him.
“No.”
A pause.
“I’m preserving the room you were confident nobody would see.”
Gavin’s eyes narrowed.
Sienna stood near the SUV while the estate physician checked her blood pressure and the baby’s heart rate.
Both were stable.
Nico did not relax.
Mila had been taken upstairs.
Sabrina kept glancing toward the scissors now sealed inside an evidence bag.
Marjorie sat perfectly straight on the padded bench where Mila had been pinned minutes earlier.
She looked insulted.
Not ashamed.
That told Nico something.
Then security traced the camera shutdown.
Gavin’s credential had authorized it.
He smiled immediately.
“Then somebody used my access.”
Nico’s eyes remained on him.
“You lose your key often?”
Gavin’s smile disappeared.
Sienna closed her eyes.
Nico noticed.
“What?”
She opened them slowly.
“Three nights ago.”
Her voice was quiet.
“I saw his phone open on the kitchen counter.”
Gavin turned.
“Sienna.”
She flinched.
Nico saw that too.
Gavin softened his voice instantly.
The change was practiced.
“Don’t do this while you're upset.”
Nico’s gaze moved between them.
Sienna’s fingers curled over the edge of her cardigan.
Gavin continued.
“You're exhausted. The baby is due. Mila’s scared.”
Nico watched his daughter’s face.
She had heard this tone before.
Many times.
Sienna took a slow breath.
“I saw the security app.”
Gavin’s jaw tightened.
“And?”
“The garage camera was highlighted.”
Marjorie laughed softly.
“This is what pregnancy has done to her. Every screen becomes a conspiracy.”
Sienna looked at her.
Her breathing sharpened.
Then Nico stepped slightly forward.
Marjorie went silent.
Not because he touched her.
Because she suddenly understood that every dismissive sentence was becoming evidence of a pattern.
Nico looked at Sienna.
“What were you recording today?”
She hesitated.
Gavin’s eyes locked onto hers.
Sienna noticed.
For a second she looked twenty years younger.
A daughter deciding whether telling her father would make everything worse.
Then she answered.
“Gavin and his mother talking about money.”
Marjorie’s hands stopped moving.
“What money?”
Sienna looked at Nico.
“Payments from your estate companies.”
Silence.
“I found transfers.”
Gavin laughed.
But no one joined him.
Sienna continued.
“I was going to show you tonight.”
Nico’s expression hardened.
“Who knew?”
Sienna swallowed.
“You.”
“I didn't.”
“I emailed the preliminary report to Dominic Shaw.”
Nico went still.
Dominic was not an accountant.
He was Nico’s consigliere.
His oldest adviser.
The man who had stood beside him for thirty-one years.
Sienna’s voice dropped.
“I asked him to give it to you if something happened before I could.”
Nico looked toward the disabled cameras.
Then at Gavin.
Only four people had known Sienna was preparing to expose the transfers.
Sienna.
Her accountant.
Dominic.
May you like
And now, somehow—
Gavin.
