Chapter 15 - Serena’s BargainSerena Montague requested to speak with Lily alone.
Victor said no before the federal agent finished the sentence.
Lily said yes before Victor could turn the refusal into an order.
They stood in the library, facing each other across the desk where Victor had watched Amelia die on screen. Outside the closed doors, Agent Monroe waited. Chase waited. Victor waited too, though he hated every second of it.
Serena sat in a chair near the fireplace, wrists cuffed, hair pulled back, face scrubbed clean of makeup. Without diamonds and silk, she looked younger. Not innocent. Never innocent.
Just human.
Lily did not sit.
“You wanted me,” she said. “Talk.”
Serena smiled faintly.
“I understand why Ethan trusts you.”
“Don’t say his name.”
Serena accepted that with a nod.
For a moment, the fire crackled between them.
Then Serena said, “Catherine is going to make you the villain.”
“She already tried.”
“No,” Serena said. “She has only started. She’ll say you seduced Victor. That you planted evidence. That you used a traumatized child to climb into a billionaire’s life.”
Lily’s face stayed calm, but her fingers curled at her sides.
Serena noticed.
“See? It works because it sounds like something people want to believe. Rich man. Pretty maid. Dead wife. Hidden child. It’s ugly enough to sell.”
Lily stepped closer.
“Did you call me here to warn me or insult me?”
“To bargain.”
“With me?”
Serena leaned forward.
“Victor hates me. Catherine will kill me if she can. The FBI wants my testimony. But you…” Her eyes sharpened. “You understand being invisible.”
Lily said nothing.
“I was nobody once,” Serena continued. “Do you know that? Catherine found me at twenty-two, working coat check at a museum gala. She said I had the right face, the right hunger, and no family worth mentioning.”
“That’s not an excuse.”
“No. It’s an origin story.”
Lily almost walked out.
Then Serena said, “Catherine has another child.”
Lily stopped.
Serena watched the words land.
“Not biological,” Serena said. “Leverage. Insurance. A boy named Daniel Reed.”
“Dr. Reed’s son.”
“Yes. Except Daniel is not in debt to gamblers anymore. He is missing.”
Lily remembered Reed’s confession.
Catherine owns my son.
“Where is he?”
Serena looked toward the door.
“I don’t know. But Peter Vale moved people for Catherine. Not just Evelyn. Anyone she needed hidden, scared, paid, or erased from the story.”
Lily felt sick.
“How many?”
“Enough.”
“Why tell me?”
Serena’s face changed.
For the first time, shame flickered there.
“Because Evelyn used to ask me if the daddy from the picture was real.” Her voice thinned. “And I told her no.”
Lily stared.
Serena blinked fast, angry at herself for feeling anything.
“I can’t undo that,” she said. “But I can give you Peter’s ledger.”
“Where?”
“In Catherine’s dressing room.”
Lily frowned. “Federal agents searched it.”
Serena shook her head.
“Not the room. The mirror.”
Lily remembered Catherine’s perfect silver hair. Her pearls. Her silk suits.
A woman like Catherine would hide secrets where she admired herself.
“What do you want in exchange?” Lily asked.
Serena’s answer came quietly.
“Protective custody. And when Victor looks at me like he wants me dead, remind him dead women don’t testify.”
Lily studied her.
“You tried to make his child disappear.”
Serena looked into the fire.
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Serena’s jaw tightened.
“Because Ethan cried for Lily.”
The answer startled her.
Serena glanced up.
“That night, in the hall, I had him. I could have taken him through the service tunnel before Victor reached the foyer. But he screamed your name like you were the only safe thing in the world.” Her smile twisted. “I hated you for that.”
Lily did not soften.
But she understood one thing.
Serena had been wicked.
Catherine had been worse.
When Lily left the library, Victor was waiting.
“No,” he said immediately.
“You don’t even know what she said.”
“I know she wants something.”
“She has information.”
“She lies.”
“So does Catherine,” Lily said. “But we still follow the evidence.”
Victor looked past her to the closed library doors.
“She hurt my son.”
“I know.”
“I heard him screaming.”
“I know.”
Victor’s control cracked.
“No, Lily. You don’t. I walked in and saw my child dragged across the floor. I saw you on your knees between him and a woman I nearly married. And then I found out my daughter was under my own house while I slept above her. So when Serena asks for mercy, forgive me if I don’t reach for it quickly.”
Lily’s voice softened.
“Mercy and usefulness are not the same thing.”
That stopped him.
“She says Peter Vale kept a ledger,” Lily said. “Hidden behind Catherine’s dressing mirror.”
Victor’s eyes sharpened.
They searched Catherine’s suite with Agent Monroe present.
The dressing room looked untouched by the destruction elsewhere. Perfume bottles arranged by height. Silk scarves folded by color. Pearls in velvet drawers.
Victor stood before the full-length antique mirror while a forensic technician scanned the frame.
“Here,” the technician said.
A hidden hinge released.
Behind the mirror was a wall safe.
Not digital.
Old steel.
Victor looked at Lily.
“Did Serena give a code?”
“No.”
He stared at the safe.
Then smiled without humor.
“Catherine always did love important dates.”
He tried Richard Hale’s birthday.
Nothing.
Catherine and Richard’s wedding date.
Nothing.
The date Amelia died.
Nothing.
Lily looked around the dressing room.
On the vanity sat a framed photograph of Catherine at a charity gala, one hand on Victor’s shoulder when he was a teenager. Behind them stood Richard Hale, cold and unsmiling.
Lily noticed Catherine’s necklace in the photo.
A sapphire pendant.
The same sapphire pattern was carved into the safe dial.
“Try the day Victor came to live with her,” Lily said.
Victor looked at her.
“I was four.”
“Do you know the date?”
His mouth tightened.
“Yes.”
He entered it.
The safe opened.
Inside was a leather ledger, stacks of cash, passports, encrypted drives, and a file labeled:
CHILDREN / CONTINGENCIES
Victor opened it.
On the first page was Evelyn Hale’s name.
On the second, Daniel Reed.
On the third, a name Victor did not recognize.
MILO GRANT — AGE 6.
Lily felt the air leave her lungs.
Catherine had not hidden one child.
She had built a system.
Then the mansion’s intercom crackled.
Catherine’s voice filled every room.
“Victor, you always were sentimental. That is why you lose.”
Victor grabbed the desk phone.
The line was dead.
May you like
The intercom continued.
“Bring me my ledger, or the next child in that file disappears tonight.”
Related Stories
