“She was killed in what they called a ‘business ambush,’” he said without looking up. “Rival faction. I thought I had secured the house. I was wrong. Mason saw everything from the upstairs window.”
Emily’s heart ached. “He’s not violent because he’s bad, Mr. Blackwood. He’s violent because he’s terrified. And whatever is behind that door in the north wing is making it worse.”
Alexander slammed his glass down. “That wing is off limits. It contains… reminders. Things I couldn’t bear to look at after she died.”
But Emily wouldn’t let it go.
She began noticing things. Mrs. Evelyn’s strange hostility whenever Emily got too close to the north wing. The way certain staff members avoided eye contact. The fact that security cameras in that hallway were always offline.
One night, after Mason had another nightmare, he grabbed Emily’s hand and pulled her toward the forbidden corridor.
“Door,” he whispered urgently. “Door. Mommy.”
Emily’s pulse raced. She knew she was risking everything, but the child’s desperation overpowered her fear. She found a keycard left carelessly on Mrs. Evelyn’s desk and used it.
The door at the end of the north wing opened with a soft click.
What she found inside shattered her understanding of the Blackwood mansion.
It wasn’t a storage room. It wasn’t a shrine to Camila.
It was a carefully maintained crime scene.
Bloodstains—old but visible under blacklight—still marked parts of the floor. Bullet holes had been patched but not perfectly. And in the corner stood a child-sized chair facing the window where Mason had watched his mother die. Someone had been forcing the boy to sit there, replaying security footage of the ambush on a looped screen.
Mrs. Evelyn had been keeping Mason trapped in his trauma.
