Chapter 3 - The Ghost of Elena
I jumped back from the desk, my heart pounding in my throat.
I waited for someone to yell, but the room remained perfectly silent.
The wind howled outside, violently rattling the frosted glass windows.
I carefully pulled the photograph completely out of the drawer.
Behind it was a yellowed newspaper clipping.
The headline read that Elena Cross, thirty-one, was killed during an attempted kidnapping outside the family estate.
She was Adrian’s wife.
Suddenly, a hundred confusing pieces clicked into place.
I finally understood his intense obsession with security.
I understood his flat refusal to let any of the staff get too close.
The countless hidden cameras, the heavily locked doors, and the way he treated attachment like a fatal weakness all made sense now.
His cruelty wasn’t only born of contempt.
Somewhere underneath all that ice was a man who had already watched one woman die because of the dangerous world he lived in.
After that night, I stopped wanting his approval entirely.
I simply did my job in complete silence.
What Adrian never knew was that before my mother became sick, I had spent four grueling years studying emergency nursing.
I was not just a maid.
Then, the worst blizzard Chicago had seen in decades hit the city.
On the third night of the storm, Adrian went outside after a security alarm reported damage near the rear gate.
He never came back.
May you like
I waited by the foyer window, watching the whiteout conditions swallow the entire estate.
Suddenly, the power grid failed, plunging the massive mansion into total darkness.
