Chapter 3 - The Witness in the Shadows
While Elena was playing the part of the grieving, confused wife, Sarah was not sitting idle. She had been fired, disgraced, and threatened with legal action, but Sarah was a woman who had grown up in the gutters of the city and had clawed her way into the inner sanctum of the Rinaldi empire. She knew how to survive, and more importantly, she knew where the bodies were buried—metaphorically and literally.
She sat in a cramped, rain-streaked diner on the outskirts of the city, meeting with a man named Elias. Elias was an investigative journalist with a taste for corruption and a disregard for his own safety.
"He's planning to clear the slate," Sarah said, her voice low. "Elena is just the final piece."
"Why now?" Elias asked, sipping a lukewarm coffee. "He’s been married for two years."
"The prenup," Sarah replied. "It expires in three years. If he divorces her, he loses half the estate. If she dies—or if she's deemed mentally unfit and committed—he keeps it all. The baby is the catalyst. He wants the child as a permanent heir, but he wants the mother out of the picture so he can have sole custody and complete control over the inheritance."
Elias frowned. "The pliers. You said you saw him cut the wire."
"I heard the snip," Sarah clarified. "I saw him near the maintenance panel for the chandelier earlier that day. He told me he was checking the dimmers. I didn't think twice about it. I was in the foyer when I heard the creak of the ceiling. I saw the cable fraying. I screamed at Elena, but it was too late. He had calibrated the tension so it would drop the moment the weight shifted on the stairs."
"We need proof," Elias said. "The police won't touch Victor Rinaldi without something concrete. A maid’s word against a billionaire is a losing battle."
"I have the maintenance logs," Sarah said, pulling a folded envelope from her coat. "He thought he destroyed them, but I made copies. I kept them as insurance. They show that the chandelier hadn't been serviced for months, despite his claims."
Elias took the envelope, his fingers hovering over the contents. "This is dangerous, Sarah. You know that, right? If he finds out you have these—"
"He already knows I'm a threat," Sarah interrupted. "He’s watching the house. He’s watching me. The question is, how do we get this to the authorities before he makes his next move?"
"There's a hearing on Monday," Elias said. "Public record. If we can get a judge to review these, the immunity he’s bought might finally start to crumble."
Sarah looked out the window at the rain. "Elena is still in the house, Elias. He’s keeping her sedated. I saw it on the security feeds—I still have a backdoor access to the monitoring software. He’s giving her something, something that makes her confused, makes her tired. She’s fighting, but she’s losing."
"We move before Monday," Elias decided. "We have to break her out."
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The plan was audacious. It required a diversion, a way to bypass the security contractors, and a way to get Elena out without triggering a standoff that would only end in her death. Sarah knew the mansion’s vulnerabilities—the service tunnels, the hidden entrances for the domestic staff, the weaknesses in the electronic gate system.
But even with all the knowledge in the world, the biggest risk was Victor himself. He wasn't just a businessman; he was a man who viewed people as assets and liabilities. And right now, Elena was his biggest liability.
