Chapter 5 - The Snake in the Room
By 8:00 AM the next morning, the snow had stopped, leaving Detroit covered in a thick blanket of pristine white powder.
Belle was sitting up in bed, happily eating a bowl of fresh strawberries and pancakes, laughing as I made funny faces with a red cloth napkin.
“And then the bear went ROAR!” I growled softly, wiggling my fingers.
Belle giggled, her tiny hand covering her mouth. “You’re funny, Rue. Daddy never roars. He just glares.”
“I do not glare,” a deep voice rumbled from the doorway.
Harlan stood in the entrance, wearing a fresh charcoal suit, a dark silk tie, and a cup of black coffee in his hand. But his relaxed posture vanished the moment his chief of security, Viktor, stepped up behind him and whispered something into his ear.
Harlan’s face hardened into stone once more.
“Rue,” Harlan said smoothly. “Take Belle into the adjoining playroom for a few minutes.”
Belle’s smile faded slightly. She looked at her father, then at me. I immediately stood up, taking her small hand. “Come on, sweetie. Let's go build a Lego castle.”
I led Belle through the heavy double doors into the luxury playroom attached to the suite. But I didn't close the door all the way. I left it cracked open half an inch, my heart pounding as I pressed my ear near the gap.
Two men had walked into the main bedroom.
One was an older man in his late fifties, wearing an expensive camel-hair coat and gold-rimmed glasses—Dominic Vance, Harlan’s chief legal council and longtime business partner. The other was a younger, slick man in a tailored blue suit—Julian Voss, Harlan’s younger half-brother.
“Harlan!” Julian said, his voice dripping with exaggerated concern as he stepped toward the bed. “Thank God the little girl is safe! When I heard about the ambush at the conservatory, my blood ran cold! Who could have done such a horrific thing?!”
“Sit down, Julian,” Harlan’s voice was deathly quiet.
Julian paused, forcing a smile as he sat on the velvet sofa. “Look, Harlan, the board of Voss Logistics is panicking. The news of the breach at the conservatory leaked to the press. Stock prices dropped four points this morning. People are saying you’ve lost control of the territory.”
“Who said that?” Harlan asked, leaning against the edge of the mahogany desk, swirling his black coffee.
“The Moretti syndicate in Chicago,” Dominic Vance spoke up, adjusting his gold glasses. “Carmine Moretti called my office an hour ago. He claims that if you can’t keep your own daughter safe in downtown Detroit, you shouldn't be running the shipping ports.”
I held my breath behind the door. The Moretti family.
“Carmine Moretti is an arrogant old fool who thinks three hundred miles of highway protects him,” Harlan said smoothly. “He didn't plan the ambush last night.”
Julian blinked, his eyes darting nervously toward the window. “What? How do you know?”
“Because the men who grabbed Belle used a security bypass code that was only generated three hours before her music lesson,” Harlan said, taking a slow sip of coffee. “A code that was only sent to three people in my inner circle.”
The silence in the bedroom turned heavy, suffocating, and deadly.
Julian swallowed hard, clutching his leather briefcase tighter against his knee. “Harlan... you can’t possibly suspect—!”
“I don't suspect, Julian,” Harlan interrupted softly, stepping closer to his half-brother. “I verify. And the moment I find out which one of my inner circle sold that bypass code to Chicago, I won't just kill him. I’ll erase his name from every record in this city.”
Julian’s knuckles turned white on his briefcase handle. “Of... of course, brother. We’re all working to find the traitor.”
Behind the cracked door, I stepped back slowly, my mind spinning.
I looked at Julian’s reflection in the glass cabinet. Sweat was glistening along his sideburns. His left hand was trembling as he reached for a glass of water on the table.
Julian Voss was the snake. He had sold out his six-year-old niece to Chicago to strip Harlan of his power.
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And as I looked down at Belle happily stacking red plastic blocks on the carpet, I realized that taking this nanny job didn't just mean reading bedtime stories.
It meant protecting this little girl from her own family.
