Chapter 2 - Twelve Missing Minutes
The basement of the Cole estate was cooler than the rest of the house, chilled by heavy-duty climate control units designed to keep Daniel’s private servers from overheating. The concrete floor was polished to a high sheen, reflecting the bright fluorescent lights overhead.
Amara walked down the carpeted stairs silently, holding the banister. She told herself she was just going down to grab more cloth napkins from the linen storage room, but her eyes were fixed on the far door—the server room.
The heavy steel door was slightly ajar.
A beam of light cut across the dark hallway floor, accompanied by the low hum of cooling fans and the faint click of a computer keyboard.
Amara stopped near the linen closet, keeping herself shadowed by the doorframe. She peeked around the wood paneling.
Inside the server room, the technician in the dark polo shirt was hunched over a glowing monitor mounted to the main server rack. Beside him stood a woman.
It wasn't Vanessa.
It was Chloe Vance—Vanessa’s best friend, maid of honor, and the daughter of a wealthy local real estate developer. Chloe was wearing a floor-length lavender silk gown, holding her high heels in one hand and a black USB drive in the other.
“Did you find the timestamp?” Chloe asked, her voice hushed, sharp, and impatient.
“Just got past the firewall,” the technician replied, his fingers flying across the keys. “Mr. Cole’s encryption is heavy, but Miss Hale gave me his secondary administrative override code.”
Amara’s heart did a violent flip.
Daniel’s override code?
How had Vanessa gotten that? Daniel kept his passwords locked in an encrypted vault on his phone. He was obsessive about digital security.
“How long will it take?” Chloe asked, glancing nervously back toward the door.
“Two minutes,” the technician said. “I’m isolating the outdoor terrace feed from 5:45 PM to 5:57 PM. Once I wipe the local drive, I’ll overwrite the cloud backup from the remote terminal.”
“Make sure there’s no trace,” Chloe warned, her voice dropping into a vicious, low threat. “If Daniel sees that camera feed, Vanessa is done. He’s already having second thoughts about the prenuptial agreement. If he finds out she staged that little incident with the maid, he’ll call off the whole engagement.”
“I know my job, Miss Vance,” the man growled. “Just make sure the wire transfer from your father’s account clears by midnight as promised.”
“It’s already scheduled,” Chloe snapped. “Just delete the footage.”
Amara pressed her back against the cool plaster wall, her lungs burning as she forced herself to breathe silently.
They weren't just picking on her. They weren't just trying to make her look incompetent. They were actively tampering with Daniel’s private security system to hide a lie.
Twelve minutes of footage.
From 5:45 to 5:57 PM.
The exact window of time when Vanessa had dropped the glass, accused Amara of ruining her dress, and forced Daniel to take a side in front of three hundred guests.
Amara looked down at her hands. Her thumb was still stinging. Her instincts screamed at her to turn around, walk back upstairs, grab her purse, and drive away. This wasn't her fight. These were billionaires and politicians, people with lawyers on retainer and enough money to make a housemaid disappear from the system entirely.
Family first, Amara. Always.
Daniel’s words from two years ago echoed in her head.
He had been good to her. When Nora was sick with a double ear infection last winter, Daniel had paid for a private pediatrician to visit their apartment so Amara wouldn't have to wait six hours in an urgent care clinic. He had paid her full wage for the two weeks she missed.
He was being lied to by the woman he was about to marry.
Amara reached into her apron pocket. Her phone—a slightly cracked, three-year-old smartphone—was tucked inside.
She slowly pulled it out, switching the camera to video mode.
She stepped back toward the edge of the open server room door, holding her breath, and raised the phone, angling the lens through the tiny crack between the hinges.
On the small screen, the technician’s monitor was clearly visible. The video feed showed the terrace. On screen, the digital timestamp read: 17:51:22.
On the monitor, Amara watched the digital recording of herself standing on the patio, holding the tray. She saw Vanessa reach for the glass, hold it by the stem, and open her fingers.
Then, on the monitor screen, the technician clicked a red button labeled PERMANENT DELETE.
The screen flickered. The progress bar jumped to 100%.
The video disappeared, replaced by a line of static code: FILE NOT FOUND.
“Done,” the technician said, pulling his USB drive from the server port. “Twelve minutes gone. If anyone checks, it’ll look like a temporary power surge caused a recording drop on camera four.”
“Perfect,” Chloe said, a cold, vicious smile spreading across her face. She slipped her high heels back on. “Now let’s get back upstairs before Danny notices I’m gone. Vanessa wants that maid fired before the last guest leaves tonight.”
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Amara pulled her phone back, tapped STOP RECORDING, and shoved it deep into her apron pocket.
She turned and sprinted silently down the carpeted hallway toward the secondary emergency exit that led to the garage, her heart hammering against her ribs like a sledgehammer.
