Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN WHO KEPT QUIET
Lara expected Damian to dismiss her once the immediate danger had passed. She had learned that powerful men often made decisions quickly and changed them just as quickly. A week earlier, she had been a maid who knew how to keep her head down. Now she was the central witness in a family crisis.
She packed a small bag after Grace fell asleep. Damian found her in the staff corridor.
“Where are you going?”
“I'm giving you space to handle this.”
“You're not being dismissed.”
“I didn't say I was.”
“You packed.”
Lara looked at the bag. “I have a room at my cousin's place. I thought it might be easier if I wasn't here while the investigation is happening.”
“Grace asked for you.”
“That doesn't mean I should stay.”
Damian studied her. “Why do you keep deciding that your presence is a problem?”
“Because I work for you. And because Viviana made it clear that she could ruin my life if I stood in her way.”
“She can't.”
“She already tried.”
He had no immediate answer.
Lara lowered her voice. “Grace needs stability. I don't want her to think people disappear every time she tells the truth.”
Damian looked at the packed bag. “Then stay for Grace. Not for me. You will have a separate room, full pay, and no obligation to answer questions outside the formal investigation.”
Lara hesitated. “And if I want to leave later?”
“You can.”
She searched his face for a hidden condition and found none. “All right.”
That afternoon, Grace asked to visit the garden. Lara walked beside her while Damian followed at a distance.
Grace stopped beside a rosebush. “Lara? Did Viviana hurt you because you were nice to me?”
Lara crouched. “She hurt me because she made a bad choice. It wasn't your fault.”
“Did I make her angry?”
“No.”
Grace looked down at her shoes. “I tried to be good.”
Lara gently took her hand. “You don't have to be perfect to deserve kindness.”
Damian heard the words from a few steps away.
That evening, he asked Lara to join him in his study. He had found her employment file and the records of her earlier attempts to report concerns.
“You wrote to the house manager in January,” he said.
“Yes.”
“And again in February.”
“Yes.”
“Both reports were marked resolved.”
“I never received a response.”
Damian turned the pages. The house manager had been instructed by Viviana to close the complaints without forwarding them.
He called Adrian. “Bring me every complaint filed by staff in the last year. I want the originals, including anything marked resolved.”
When Adrian arrived, he carried a thick folder. There were complaints about missing medication, unexplained schedule changes, staff being threatened, and one allegation that Viviana had ordered a nanny to leave after Grace cried during a family dinner.
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Damian looked at the pages. This had not been one isolated incident. It had been a pattern—and he had allowed his household to become a place where people were afraid to tell him the truth.
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