Chapter 2 - THE GLITCH IN THE ALIBI
The estate was deadly quiet at three in the morning.
I sat in my leather armchair inside the dark study, staring at the polished wooden desk where Julian had laid out the evidence four hours earlier.
The rain tapped rhythmically against the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the gardens. Beside me, a glass of dark amber scotch sat untouched. On the screen of my laptop, the security video played on a continuous loop.
It showed a tall, slender woman wrapped in a silk coat walking down the dark corridor toward the cellar. In her right hand, she held a gleaming key. She stepped into the camera’s blind spot for three minutes before walking back out, brushing her hands together as if finishing a chore.
The height matched Elena. The silk coat was hers—a custom champagne-colored coat I had bought her in Milan last winter. The gait, the slight tilt of her shoulders—it was all Elena.
Or at least, that was what Julian wanted me to see.
I leaned closer to the monitor, zooming in on the three-second frame where the woman turned around near the wall sconce.
There.
It was a detail so small that an investigator rushing to catch a traitor would miss it every single time.
The woman in the video unlocked the cellar door using her right hand.
Elena was left-handed. She wrote left-handed. She drank coffee left-handed. She picked up her keys left-handed. When she was nervous or hurried, she always relied on her dominant hand.
I paused the video and zoomed in further on the woman’s left wrist.
Bare.
Elena had worn a delicate platinum bracelet—an heirloom passed down from her late mother—on her left wrist every single day for six years. She never took it off. Not to sleep. Not to bathe. Not to walk down into a cold basement.
My heart thumped against my ribs, heavy and hollow.
I opened the top drawer of my desk and pulled out the invoice Julian had handed me—the receipt showing the brass lock purchase from a hardware store downtown, paid for with Elena’s private card.
I held the paper up to the desk lamp.
The store was located on 4th Street. The timestamp on the receipt read Tuesday, 2:15 PM.
On Tuesday at 2:15 PM, Elena had been sitting beside me in a private medical clinic three miles away, holding my hand while we looked at ultrasound scans during our pre-wedding health screenings. She hadn't left my side for three hours.
I closed my eyes as a cold, sickening realization washed over me.
I hadn't just humiliated the woman I loved in front of fifty servants. I hadn't just stripped the ring off her finger while she wept on her knees.
I had played right into a trap built by the man I trusted with my life.
Julian.
Julian, who had been my right hand for eight years. Julian, who managed my security, held my offshore accounts, and walked two paces behind me through every bloody war in Manhattan.
Why frame Elena? Why put Mia—a quiet, harmless housemaid—in a dark hole to starve?
The wooden floorboard in the hallway gave a tiny, almost imperceptible creak.
I slammed the laptop screen shut, leaned back in my chair, and took a slow sip of scotch.
The door opened silently. Julian stood on the threshold, dressed in a sharp navy suit, carrying a leather ledger under his arm. His face was the picture of solemn, devoted concern.
"You're still awake, Leo," Julian said softly, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. "You should rest. The household is shaken, but I’ve reinforced the perimeter guards. Elena’s car left the estate an hour ago. She’s at her sister’s house in Upstate."
"Is she?" I asked, keeping my voice flat, unreadable.
"Yes," Julian said, walking over to the desk. He placed the ledger down. "I made sure she was escorted safely. We don't want a public scandal before the quarterly board meeting. I know this hurts, brother. But you did the right thing. Betrayal under your own roof cannot be tolerated."
I looked at Julian’s face. For eight years, I had seen loyalty in those sharp blue eyes. Tonight, looking closer, I saw something else.
Impatience. Ambition. A predator waiting for the alpha to bleed out.
"She swore she didn't do it, Julian," I said, leaning back into the shadows of my chair.
Julian let out a heavy, sympathetic sigh. "They always swear that, Leo. But facts don't lie. The camera. The key. The lock. It’s all there. Elena was jealous of Mia’s closeness to you. She thought Mia was whispering things in your ear."
"Mia is a maid, Julian."
"Mia was your mother’s favorite," Julian corrected smoothly. "And you treat her like family. Elena felt threatened."
I tapped my fingers on the armrest. "Where is Mia now?"
"Dr. Vance gave her a sedative. She's asleep in the east guest wing. Her daughter is with her." Julian stepped closer, his voice dropping into an intimate whisper. "I can have Mia moved to a private recovery house in New Jersey tomorrow. For her own protection. Away from the press."
Away from me.
He wanted Mia out of the house before she could speak.
"No," I said quietly.
Julian blinked, a tiny twitch appearing at the corner of his jaw. "No?"
"She stays here," I said, standing up and buttoning my suit jacket. "In this house. Under my personal guard. Nobody touches her. Nobody speaks to her without my permission."
Julian hesitated for half a second before bowing his head smoothly. "Of course, Leo. Whatever you think is best."
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"Get some sleep, Julian," I said, walking past him toward the door. "Tomorrow, we clean house."
As I stepped into the dark hallway, I felt Julian's gaze burning into the back of my neck like a loaded gun.
