Chapter 3: What a Six-Year-Old Remembered
The doctor arrived twenty minutes later — a quiet man named Dr.
Hale who had been on Leo Rossi's private payroll for eleven years and had learned not to ask questions that weren't medical.
He examined Lily in her bedroom while Leo stood at the foot of the bed and Beatrice sat in the chair by the window, a bandage now pressed to her cheek, her hands wrapped in a thin cloth that had already soaked through twice.
"Mild hypoxia," Dr.
Hale said, folding his stethoscope.
"Her oxygen levels are recovering.
She needs rest, warmth, and her inhaler kept within reach at all times." He paused.
"How long was she in the cellar?"
"Long enough," Leo said.
Dr.
Hale looked at Beatrice.
At her face.
At her hands.
"And you?"
"I'm fine," Beatrice said.
"You have a split cheekbone and two fingers that may be fractured."
"I'm fine."
He dressed her wounds without arguing.
When he finished, he snapped his bag shut, looked at Leo, and said only, "I'll file the report as a household accident.
Unless you'd prefer otherwise."
Leo said nothing for a moment.
"Leave it open."
Dr.
Hale nodded and left.
Lily had not fallen asleep.
She lay with her rabbit pressed to her chest, watching the ceiling.
Her color had returned — pale pink where it had been blue — but her eyes were too still for a child who had just been frightened.
"Lily," Leo said softly.
He sat on the edge of the bed.
"What you told me downstairs.
I need you to tell me again.
Out loud.
Can you do that?"
Lily turned her head toward Beatrice first.
Beatrice nodded once.
"It's all right, sweetheart.
You can say it."
Lily looked back at her father.
"Victoria put me in the cellar before."
Leo's jaw tightened.
"Before today."
"Three times." Lily's voice was very small but very certain.
"She said it was a game.
She said if I told you, she would send Bee away."
The room went quiet enough to hear the lake outside.
"She said she'd send Bee away," Leo repeated.
"She said Bee would lose her job and have nowhere to go." Lily's fingers tightened around the rabbit.
"I didn't want Bee to have nowhere to go."
Beatrice pressed the cloth to her mouth.
She did not make a sound.
Leo stood up slowly.
He walked to the window.
He stood there with his back to the room for a long moment, and when he turned around, his face had changed in a way that had nothing to do with anger.
Anger was loud.
This was something quieter and far more dangerous.
"Three times," he said.
"Yes, Daddy."
"And she told you it was a game."
"She said all little girls play it.
She said I was being a baby if I was scared." Lily's chin trembled.
"I was scared."
"I know, princess."
"I didn't want Bee to go."
Leo crossed back to the bed and sat beside his daughter.
He put his hand over hers, the large scarred hand and the tiny soft one, and he said, "Bee is not going anywhere.
Do you understand me?
Nobody is sending Bee anywhere."
Lily looked past him.
"Promise?"
Beatrice stood up from the chair.
Her legs ached.
Her face throbbed.
She walked to the bed and sat on the other side of Lily, and she took the little girl's other hand.
"Promise," Beatrice said.
Lily closed her eyes.
They sat like that — the crime boss and the maid — on either side of a six-year-old who had kept a terrible secret for three months because she was afraid of losing the one person who had ever sat on the floor with her in the dark.
After a while, Lily's breathing slowed into sleep.
Leo did not move immediately.
He looked at Beatrice across his daughter's small sleeping form.
"How long have you known?" he asked.
"I suspected," Beatrice said.
"I didn't know.
Lily never said.
I found bruises twice — on her arm, once on her ribs.
She said she fell.
I reported them to the house manager."
"To Carver."
"Yes."
Something moved behind Leo's eyes.
"Carver told me they were from the playground."
Beatrice said nothing.
Leo stood up.
He straightened his coat.
He looked at his daughter one more time, and then he walked to the door and stopped with his hand on the frame.
"Don't leave this room tonight," he said.
"Either of you."
He stepped into the hallway and pulled the door almost shut behind him.
Through the narrow gap, Beatrice heard him say one word to someone waiting outside.
"Mateo."
And then footsteps.
Moving fast.
Moving toward the east wing, where Victoria Kensington's suite was located — the suite Leo himself had given her, three months ago, when she arrived at the estate with a smile like a gift and a story about wanting to help raise Lily as her own.
Beatrice pulled the blanket up over Lily's shoulders.
May you like
She had a feeling Victoria's bags were already packed.
She had a feeling that wasn't going to save her.
