Chapter 2 - The Mask Slips
Through the high-definition microphone hidden inside the molding, Regina’s voice came through with crisp, terrifying clarity. Emilio watched her on the forty-two-inch display, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
“I asked you a question, Julieta,” Regina continued, her tone dripping with quiet venom. She took two slow steps forward. “Do you know where you are?”
Julieta stood her ground. Her posture was straight, despite the hours she had spent on her knees scrubbing the expansive marble floors that Emilio had spitefully assigned her. She kept her hands clasped in front of her gray uniform apron, her eyes fixed respectfully on the floor just a few inches in front of Regina’s designer shoes.
“I am in Mr. Verona’s home, Miss Ashford,” Julieta replied quietly, her voice steady despite the obvious exhaustion in her frame. “I am caring for Noah and Gianna.”
“No,” Regina said, leaning in closer until her painted lips were just inches from Julieta’s ear. “You are in my home. Or what will very soon be my home. And these children are my responsibility now. Which means you are an inconvenience.”
Emilio’s breath hitched in his throat. He leaned closer to the monitor, his knuckles turning chalk-white against the edge of his mahogany desk. This was not the woman who had cried softly against his chest the night before. This was not the gentle, refined socialite who claimed she was trying to protect his family from an abusive nanny.
Regina reached out and snatched the small stuffed bear from Gianna’s lap. Gianna immediately let out a small, high-pitched whimper, reaching her tiny hands into the air. Noah woke up fully, his eyes widening in confusion as he sensed the sudden shift in the room's energy.
“Please, Miss Ashford,” Julieta said, stepping forward with her hands slightly raised in a gentle, non-threatening gesture. “She loves that bear. It helps her sleep.”
“I don’t care what she loves,” Regina snapped, turning her back on the children and looking down at the plush toy with disgust. “What I care about is control. Emilio is distracted by these two brats, and he’s distracted by the memory of his dead wife. But once you’re gone—once I show him the video of you ‘hurting’ them—he will have no choice but to rely entirely on me.”
Emilio felt as though the air had been violently sucked from his lungs. The video? What video?
On screen, Regina pulled a small, silver digital camera from her expensive leather handbag. She turned it toward Julieta with a cold, triumphant sneer.
“It’s amazing what a few thousand dollars can buy you in the West Loop,” Regina whispered, her voice laced with malicious pride. “An editor can do wonderful things with lighting, angles, and a little bit of audio manipulation. By the time I show Emilio this file tonight, he’ll think you’ve been slapping these children every time he leaves the estate.”
Julieta’s eyes widened in genuine horror. “You wouldn’t. Mr. Verona loves his children more than life itself. If he thinks they are being harmed, it will break him.”
“Good,” Regina hissed. “A broken man is much easier to manage. He’ll sign the prenuptial agreement without reading the fine print. He’ll hand over the oversight of the foundation to my father. And you, my dear, will be in a state penitentiary for child abuse. A fitting end for a nobody who thought she could look at my fiancé with soft eyes.”
In his office, Emilio stood up so fast his heavy leather chair crashed backward onto the floor. The sound echoed off the dark oak walls, but he barely heard it. Blood pounded in his ears like a war drum. Every instinct that had made him the most feared commander in Chicago’s underworld surged to the surface, but it was now laced with an unbearable, agonizing guilt.
He had believed her. He had listened to Regina’s sweet, manipulative lies and had turned his wrath on the only person who had actually brought warmth back into his motherless home. He had forced Julieta to her knees to scrub floors. He had threatened her. He had called her names that made his own throat burn with shame now.
On the screen, Regina stepped closer to Julieta, raising her right hand—the same hand that bore the neat, symmetrical bruise she had shown Emilio twenty-four hours ago.
“Do you know how I got this, Julieta?” Regina asked, her voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “I pinched my own skin with a pair of brass ice tongs from the bar. It hurt like hell, but Emilio’s reaction was worth every second. He was ready to kill you with his bare hands. All I had to do was drop Kowalski’s name, and he became a blind dog on a leash.”
Julieta looked at Regina not with anger, but with a profound, terrifying pity. “You don’t love him,” Julieta said softly. “You don’t love him at all. You just want his power.”
“Love is for weaklings,” Regina laughed, a short, sharp bark that made Noah flinch on the rug. “Love is what killed Catherine. She thought Emilio’s world was romantic, right up until a stray bullet found her car. I am not Catherine. I am going to survive, and I am going to win.”
Regina reached out and grabbed Julieta’s arm, digging her long, manicured nails into the fabric of the nanny’s uniform. “Now, here is what is going to happen. You are going to pack your bags right now. You are going to walk out that front gate, and you are never coming back. If you say a single word to Emilio, I will make sure my father’s friends in the State’s Attorney’s office put you away for kidnapping. Do you understand me?”
Julieta stood rigid. She looked past Regina, her eyes landing on Noah and Gianna, who were now clinging to each other on the Persian rug, watching the adults with wide, frightened eyes. Julieta took a deep, steadying breath.
“No,” Julieta said.
Regina froze. Her face twisted into a mask of pure, unadulterated rage. “What did you say to me?”
“I said no,” Julieta repeated, her voice rising, filled with a quiet strength that seemed to fill the entire grand room. “I will not leave them with you. You can ruin my life, Miss Ashford. You can send me to prison. But as long as I am employed by Mr. Verona, I will protect these children from you.”
May you like
Regina raised her hand, her palm flat, swinging it back with vicious intent to strike Julieta across the face.
In his forty-second-floor office, Emilio didn’t just watch. He moved.
