Chapter 1 - The Secret in the Walls
Dominic did not release the child.
He looked at the pale, trembling woman standing in his doorway.
The weight of the little girl in his arms felt both completely foreign and undeniably right.
Grace babbled softly, reaching up to tug at the collar of his expensive charcoal suit.
"Where have you been keeping her?" Dominic repeated, his voice dangerously even.
Hannah swallowed hard, clutching the damp cleaning cloth against her chest as if it were a shield.
"In the linen closets, mostly," she whispered, her eyes fixed on the floor.
Dominic's sharp gaze narrowed as he processed the sheer absurdity of her claim.
His mansion was heavily guarded by thirty armed men at all hours of the day and night.
State-of-the-art cameras covered every hallway, every entrance, and every blind spot.
Yet a poor, unassuming maid had smuggled a living, breathing baby past his entire security apparatus.
"You hid a nine-month-old infant in a closet without a single guard hearing her cry," Dominic stated, the skepticism clear in his tone.
"She does not cry often, sir," Hannah explained quickly.
"When she does, I take her into the hollow walls in the east wing."
"There is an old servant passage behind the master suites."
Dominic knew about those hidden passages from his father's era, but he had ordered them sealed five years ago.
The steel doors barring those tunnels required digital passcodes.
Someone had to have helped this terrified woman bypass the mansion's internal locks.
"Who else knows she is inside this house?" Dominic demanded, his grip tightening protectively around Grace.
Hannah shook her head violently, tears finally spilling over her dark eyelashes.
"No one, I swear to you," she cried out, stepping forward pleadingly.
Dominic Caruso did not believe in coincidences or lucky breaks.
He gently shifted Grace to his left arm, shielding her tiny body with his broad shoulder.
With his free right hand, he slowly opened the top drawer of his mahogany desk.
His fingers brushed the cold, familiar steel of his customized pistol.
He was preparing to lock down the entire estate to interrogate the staff.
Before he could pull the weapon from the drawer, heavy footsteps echoed down the marble corridor.
Vincent Rizzo, Dominic's ruthless head of security, stepped into the doorway right behind Hannah.
The massive, heavily scarred man stopped dead in his tracks at the sight before him.
His cold, calculated eyes darted from the crying maid to the smiling baby resting against his boss's chest.
Vincent did not smile at the sight of the child.
Instead, his jaw clenched, and he slowly reached his hand inside his tailored jacket.
Dominic immediately recognized the subtle, dangerous shift of a man drawing a lethal weapon.
"Vincent, stop right there," Dominic commanded, his voice echoing with absolute authority.
Vincent completely ignored the billionaire he had sworn to protect.
He pulled a heavy, silenced handgun from his shoulder holster in one fluid motion.
But the security chief did not point the lethal weapon at Dominic or the trembling maid.
He raised the barrel directly toward the reinforced glass window directly behind Dominic's desk.
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"Get down!" Vincent roared, diving forward.
The supposedly bulletproof glass suddenly shattered inward in a deafening explosion of sharp crystal and white smoke.
