Chapter 3 - THE SECRET BEHIND THE FIRE
Adrian did not wait for the evening to summon her.
He found Clara—Isabella—in the greenhouse, quietly pruning the winter hydrangeas. In the daylight, without the grand dining room's shadows, she looked exhausted. Her hands moved with precision, but her shoulders carried a heavy, invisible weight.
Adrian stepped onto the gravel path. "The hydrangeas are fine, Isabella."
The shears in her hand slipped, snapping a perfectly healthy stem in half. She froze, her back to him. The silence stretched, thick and suffocating, before she slowly turned around. The meek, invisible housekeeper was gone. In her eyes was the sharp, terrified defensive glare of a woman who had been cornered.
"How long have you known?" she asked, her voice trembling but refusing to break.
"Since this morning," Adrian said. He reached into his coat pocket and placed the plastic bag containing the charred silver spoon onto a wrought-iron patio table.
Isabella flinched at the sight of it. She took a step forward, then stopped. "I didn't steal anything from you. I do my work. I stay out of the way."
"You are working in the house of the man who bought your family’s ruined legacy for pennies," Adrian countered, watching her carefully. "Why? Revenge? Were you planning to poison my father, only to find he died before you got the chance?"
"No!" Isabella’s voice cracked. She gripped the edge of the table. "I didn't even know your father bought the land until a year after I started working here. I came here because the Vale estate is the only place in the city with private, untouchable security. I needed to disappear. I needed a fortress."
Adrian frowned. "Who are you hiding from?"
"The man who locked the kitchen doors before he set the fire," Isabella whispered, the memory pulling the color from her face. "My father didn't just lose everything to a spark, Mr. Vale. He found out his business partner was embezzling millions. He was going to the police the next morning. Instead, the restaurant burned."
"The investigator ruled it an accident."
"The investigator vanished three years ago with a newly funded offshore account," Isabella fired back, stepping closer. "My father is sitting in a long-term care facility with burns over forty percent of his body, unable to speak, and his former partner is living in a penthouse."
"Who was the partner?"
Isabella looked away, staring into the dark soil of the flowerbeds. "Richard Vance."
Adrian went entirely still. Richard Vance wasn't just a businessman. He was currently the vice-chairman of the Vale corporate board. He was the man Adrian’s father had trusted most.
"Vance," Adrian repeated softly, a dangerous edge forming in his tone. "If Vance set the fire, why keep the spoon? Why keep proof of who you are?"
Isabella reached into her apron pocket. Her hands were shaking as she pulled out a folded, slightly singed piece of thick parchment.
"Because my father didn't just find proof of Vance's embezzlement," Isabella said, her voice dropping to a terrified whisper. She handed the paper to Adrian. "He found out who was funding him."
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Adrian unfolded the brittle paper. It was a ledger page. At the bottom, authorizing a transfer of two million dollars to Vance's private account the day before the fire, was a signature Adrian had seen a thousand times.
It was his father’s signature.
