THE STOLEN DIAMONDS AND THE SLEEPING SHADOWS

“Mommy… that’s the lady who watches us sleep.”

Sophie’s tiny voice barely carried over the chaos of the ballroom, but it hit me like a physical blow.

The air in my lungs vanished. I pulled my daughter tighter against my chest, shielding her face from the massive television screens above us.

The woman on the screen—the one wearing my uniform, my face, my hair—was looking directly into the security camera.

She wasn’t just walking past it. She was posing.

“Turn it off,” Roman’s voice boomed. It wasn’t a request. It was the kind of command that ended careers.

The screens went black instantly. The ballroom plunged into a heavy, suffocating silence. Even the wealthy elite, people who paid hundreds of thousands for a dinner plate, knew better than to speak when Roman DeLuca used that tone.

Victor Hale stood on the staircase, his phone still in his hand, his smug expression untouched by the tension in the room.

“The camera doesn’t lie, Roman,” Victor said smoothly. “She stole it. The footage proves she was in the room.”

I looked at Roman. I expected to see the cold, calculating mafia boss the tabloids wrote about. The man who supposedly made problems disappear in the dead of night.

Instead, he was looking at Sophie.

“You said she watches you sleep, sweetheart?” Roman asked, his voice entirely different now. Gentle. Steady.

I tried to pull Sophie back, my maternal instincts screaming to run, but three armed guards were blocking the kitchen doors. We were trapped.

Sophie peeked out from my shoulder, her little fingers twisting the fabric of my apron.

“Uh-huh,” Sophie whispered. “She stands by the window. She smells like rain and… and smoke.”

My blood ran cold.

The staff quarters were in the basement level. Our room only had one high, narrow window near the ceiling. To stand by it, someone would have to be outside, crouching in the garden beds. In the dirt.

“I don’t smoke,” I said, my voice shaking. I looked desperately at Roman. “You know I don’t. You fired a landscaper last month just for vaping near the patio.”

Roman’s jaw tightened. He turned his attention back to the staircase.

“Victor,” Roman said, stepping away from the crowd. “You brought the footage up awfully fast.”

“Security protocol,” Victor replied, though his smile wavered a fraction. “When Isabella screamed, I pulled the feed.”

“Isabella screamed three minutes ago,” Roman pointed out. “The system takes five minutes to buffer and isolate specific room feeds. You had this queued up.”

Isabella, standing near the champagne tower, shifted uncomfortably. “Roman, really. She’s a maid. They all steal eventually. Just call the police.”

“No one is calling the police,” Roman said. He didn’t look at his fiancée. He was staring at Victor. “Because if the police come, they’ll notice the timestamp on that video.”

Victor’s hand twitched. Just a millimeter. But I saw it. And so did Roman.

“Timestamp?” Isabella asked, her voice shrill.

“The video said 8:15 PM,” Roman said quietly. The calmness in his voice was terrifying. “At 8:15 PM, this woman—” he gestured to me, “—was in my study. Helping my mother clean up a spilled cup of tea.”

The ballroom erupted in fresh gasps.

My heart hammered against my ribs. It was true. Roman’s elderly mother, who rarely left the upper wing, had dropped her porcelain cup. I had been on my hands and knees pulling glass from the Persian rug. Roman had walked in, handed me a towel, and thanked me.

“So,” Roman continued, taking another slow step toward the stairs. “If she was in my study with me… who the hell is on that video, Victor?”

Victor didn’t answer. He slipped his hand back inside his tailored jacket.

Instantly, Roman’s guards raised their weapons.

“Don’t do it,” Roman warned.

But Victor pulled out something else. Not a gun.

A small, silver object. He tossed it down the marble steps. It clattered and bounced, sliding across the polished floor until it hit the toe of my worn black shoe.

I looked down.

It was a silver Zippo lighter. Engraved with a single, elegant letter.

An ‘E’.

“Elena,” I breathed, the word slipping out before I could stop it.

Roman turned to me. “Who is Elena?”

I couldn’t breathe. The room was spinning. I hadn’t spoken that name in five years. Not since the fire. Not since the night I thought my twin sister died in the flames that took our childhood home.

Before I could answer, the heavy oak doors of the ballroom rattled violently.

The lights flickered. Once. Twice.

Then, every light in the mansion went completely black.

In the darkness, a woman’s voice—sounding exactly like mine—echoed through the mansion’s intercom system.