Chapter 2
Margaret had disliked Valeria from the beginning.
That fact complicated everything.
Dominic knew it.
Valeria knew it.
Margaret knew it better than either of them.
Three years earlier, when Dominic first introduced Valeria at a family dinner, Margaret waited until the younger woman left before saying:
“She watches the room before she answers you.”
Dominic had laughed.
“So do you.”
“Yes.”
Margaret lifted her wineglass.
“But I’m your mother. I’m allowed to know where the exits are.”
Dominic assumed the problem was territorial.
His first wife, Ava’s mother, had died shortly after a sudden illness when Ava was still an infant.
Margaret stepped into the empty space.
She visited four days a week.
She knew Ava’s pediatrician, favorite books, food allergies, bedtime songs, and the exact order in which the child demanded her stuffed animals be arranged.
Then Valeria appeared.
At first, she was careful.
She never challenged Margaret openly.
She simply suggested small changes.
Ava needed more consistent routines.
Too many visitors overstimulated her.
Grandma gave her too many sweets.
Grandma let bedtime run late.
Grandma confused Ava by contradicting household rules.
None of the complaints sounded unreasonable individually.
So Dominic accepted most of them.
Margaret began visiting three days a week.
Then twice.
Then only when invited.
The first serious argument happened six months before the birthday incident.
Margaret arrived without calling.
Valeria stopped her in the foyer.
“We need boundaries.”
Margaret looked past her toward Ava.
“My granddaughter is asking me to come inside.”
“She asks for ice cream before breakfast too.”
Margaret told Dominic.
Dominic told both women to stop putting him between them.
He now understood that sentence differently.
He had believed refusing to choose was neutrality.
In practice, it meant the person already controlling the house won.
That person had increasingly been Valeria.
And behind Valeria stood Lucian.
Lucian Knox had joined Dominic’s organization twelve years earlier.
He was efficient.
Calm.
Useful.
He managed security contracts, vendor relationships, logistics, and several legitimate holdings that Dominic did not enjoy supervising personally.
When Valeria and Dominic began dating, Lucian made a point of keeping business separate.
At least publicly.
Dominic respected him for it.
Now Lucian sat in the mansion library with a bodyguard beside the door.
Valeria sat across the hall in the drawing room.
Margaret remained with Dominic.
Anthony Mercer, Dominic’s security director, examined the recorder without connecting it to anything.
“No wireless transmission active now,” Anthony said.
“Can you pull the data?”
“Yes.”
“Without altering it?”
Anthony nodded.
“I’ll make an image first.”
Margaret looked at Dominic.
“You trust him?”
Anthony did not react.
Dominic did.
But the question bothered him.
Twenty-four hours earlier he would have considered it insulting.
Now somebody had hidden a recorder inside his daughter’s favorite toy.
“Do it in front of me,” Dominic said.
Anthony nodded once.
No offense.
No argument.
That response mattered.
Two hours later, they had the first directory listing.
Forty-seven audio files.
Dates spanning almost five months.
Dominic recognized several immediately.
They corresponded with days Ava carried the rabbit around the mansion.
Kitchen.
Study.
Car.
Nursery.
Family room.
Even Margaret’s apartment.
Dominic stared at the screen.
“This thing recorded my daughter for five months?”
Anthony looked grim.
“Intermittently. Motion or sound activated.”
Margaret covered her mouth.
Dominic’s first instinct was to destroy the device with his bare hands.
His second was better.
“Copy everything.”
Anthony did.
The first file they played contained ordinary breakfast noise.
Ava asking for blueberries.
Dominic taking a business call.
Valeria telling the housekeeper to bring coffee.
The second contained forty minutes of near silence.
The third contained Lucian’s voice.
Dominic froze.
Lucian sounded close to the microphone.
“You keep letting the old woman back in.”
Then Valeria.
“She’s his mother.”
“That didn’t answer me.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Make Dominic think every problem starts when Margaret enters the house.”
A pause.
Then Valeria whispered:
“You said this would be temporary.”
Lucian answered.
“It is.”
“How temporary?”
“Until the wedding.”
Dominic stopped the recording.
Nobody in the room spoke.
Margaret looked at her son.
Dominic pressed play again.
May you like
Lucian’s final sentence filled the room.
“After that, Margaret doesn’t come back.”
