Claire took a step forward. “What happened?”
I stopped in front of her.
“You tell me.”
The color shifted beneath her skin. Not enough for panic. Enough for calculation.
“I don’t understand.”
“Harper says Mia went downstairs with you three days ago.”
Claire blinked. “With me?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not true.”
Harper’s hand tightened around mine. “It is.”
Claire looked down at the child. “Harper, sweetheart, you must have been confused.”
The words were soft.
Too soft.
Harper shrank closer to me.
I felt something inside me harden.
“Do not call her confused,” I said.
Claire looked back at me, wounded. “Dominic, I’m not accusing her of lying. She’s four years old. She was frightened.”
“She was ignored.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No,” I said. “It isn’t.”
For the first time since I had known her, Claire had no immediate reply.
When I met Claire Bennett eighteen months earlier at a charity auction, she had seemed like still water in a room full of noise. Intelligent, elegant, unflustered by wealth because she had grown up near it but not dependent on it. She worked with children’s literacy foundations and spoke with a warmth that made donors open their wallets without feeling handled.
She had met Harper twice before and brought her picture books both times.
Now the child would not look at her.
That mattered.
“Dr. Reeves is coming,” I told Marcus. “Take Mia to the blue guest room. Daniel, stay with them. No one enters without my permission.”
Mia’s eyes met mine briefly.
There was something she wanted to say.
Something she couldn’t say in front of Claire.
I gave her the smallest nod.
Not now.
But soon.
Once Marcus carried her upstairs, I turned to the waiting staff.
“No one leaves the property,” I said.
A ripple of fear moved through them.
My assistant, Elise, stepped forward, tablet clutched to her chest. “Mr. Vale, several vendors are scheduled—”
“Cancel them.”
“The police are coming?”
“Yes.”
A few whispers rose.
I did not raise my voice.
That was rarely necessary.
“A woman was found locked in the wine cellar. She works in this house. Her child asked for help for three days. Anyone who knows anything and chooses silence from this moment forward will answer for it legally.”
Not to me.
Legally.
That distinction mattered today.
For much of my life, people had assumed I preferred private solutions. Sometimes I had. In certain rooms, with certain men, reputation accomplished what courts could not. But Mia was not a rival. Harper was not collateral. This was not business.
This was a crime inside my home.
And the only way to clean rot was to expose it to light.
Nathan entered the sitting room from the far doorway, returning just in time to hear the end of my statement.
His expression revealed nothing.
“Everyone is here,” he said.
“Not everyone.”
His brow lifted. “Who’s missing?”
“Claire’s personal driver.”
Claire stiffened.
I looked at her. “Where is Owen?”
“I don’t know. He had the morning off.”
“Convenient.”
Her face flushed. “You can’t honestly think Owen had anything to do with this.”
“I don’t think yet. I count.”
Nathan stepped closer. “Dom, the police are on their way. Maybe we should let them handle staff interviews.”
“We will.”
“You’re already frightening people.”
“Good.”
His eyes hardened. “Fear makes people lie.”
“So does loyalty to the wrong person.”
The sentence struck him. I saw it land.
For a long moment, he held my gaze. Then he looked away first.
That had never happened before.
Dr. Reeves arrived before the police.
She was a sharp-eyed woman in her sixties who had patched enough members of my household over the years to know when not to ask questions in the foyer. She went upstairs with her medical bag and returned twenty minutes later looking grim.
“She’s dehydrated and exhausted,” she said quietly. “Bruising, rope burns, mild fever. I want her at a hospital.”
“Will she be able to speak first?”
“A little. Not for long.”
“Can it wait until police arrive?”
Dr. Reeves studied me. “Physically, yes. Emotionally, I would be careful.”