## Chapter 6
Willa rented a small apartment in a working-class neighborhood, cramped, damp, twenty minutes from the estate. She wasn’t there for comfort. She was there because she couldn’t walk away.
Every night, lying on the old narrow bed, she saw Rosie’s eyes in her mind — wide, brown, rimmed red, filled with confusion and fear when the little girl had been pulled from her arms. *Willa, don’t go.* That voice haunted her every night. She had promised. Willa Sinclair had never broken a promise to a child.
But she couldn’t simply go back and knock on the mansion door. Griffin would call the police. She would be arrested for theft, and Rosie would lose forever the last person who truly cared about her. She needed another way. She needed to understand what was happening.
She contacted Maria, a longtime housekeeper still working at the estate, a woman she had once been close to. Maria was frightened but agreed to meet at a small coffee shop on the outskirts of the city. “Everything’s changed, child,” Maria whispered. “Mister Griffin is selling paintings, selling cars, even selling the antique pieces Mr. Ezra collected, so fast, like he’s desperate for money. Miss Paige is always sitting with stacks of paperwork. Something about changing names, adding names onto property. I don’t understand it, but it doesn’t seem right.”
Willa didn’t fully understand what it meant, but she knew something was terribly wrong inside that mansion, and Rosie was trapped in the middle of it.
Late one night, her phone vibrated. An unknown number. *Keep going. You’re on the right track.*
Her heart began to beat faster. She typed back: *Who are you?* No answer for two minutes. Then: *Protect Rosie at any cost. You’re not alone.*
Someone was on her side.
Miles away, Ezra set the phone down. “Are you sure you want to pull her into this?” Miles asked. “Our world could swallow her whole.”
“She’s already in it,” Ezra said. “From the moment she refused to abandon Rosie.”
That same week, in the study, Griffin sat behind the black oak desk with Paige across from him, neither knowing the hidden microphone was recording every word.
“The girl’s a problem,” Griffin said. “As long as she’s here, we can’t move freely.”
“Boarding school,” Paige suggested. “Switzerland. Far away, quiet. Nobody asks questions.”
“Tell everyone it’s for the child’s own good,” Griffin said. “And once she’s gone, we’ll have complete control. The will, the assets, the organization. Ezra thought he built it all for his daughter. In truth, he built it for us. He just never knew it.”
The door opened. Victor Slade stepped in without knocking. “I hear you’re planning to send the girl away.” When Paige protested it wasn’t his concern, he raised a hand. “I’m not objecting. But if you’re going to do it, do it cleanly.” He smiled, cold. “I want to make sure I’m standing on the right side when all of this is over.”
He walked out. In the dark room, Ezra’s jaw clenched so hard it ached. Griffin and Paige wanted Rosie gone. But Victor — which side was the old man really on?
“Find proof about the assassination attempt,” Ezra told Miles. “If we can find who moved the money, we’ll know who the real mastermind is.”
