it.
“Then what exactly did you think I was going to do?”
“Give me a reason not to trust you.”
Her eyes flashed.
“You already had a reason.
My last name.”
The accusation landed because it was true.
Before Vincent could answer, footsteps approached outside.
Enzo Russo stopped at the open doorway.
He glanced first at Vincent, then at Mara, then at the untouched valuables.
“Did she take the bait?” he asked.
Something in Vincent changed.
It was not the question itself.
It was Enzo’s certainty.
Vincent watched him carefully.
“No,” he said.
Enzo frowned.
“Nothing?”
“Not a dollar.”
Enzo’s eyes rested briefly on Mara.
“Then she’s smarter than we thought.”
Mara stiffened.
Vincent stood.
“Leave us.”
Enzo hesitated.
Vincent repeated it more quietly.
“Leave.”
The lieutenant disappeared into the corridor.
Vincent waited until the footsteps faded.
Then he closed the drawing-room door.
Mara folded her arms defensively.
“If you’re firing me, do it quickly.”
“I want to know why you’re here.”
“You heard me.”
“I heard half a conversation.”
She stared at him for several seconds, clearly deciding how much truth might cost her.
Finally she reached beneath her collar and pulled out the medal Vincent had noticed on her first day.
“My father gave me this when I was nine.
Daniel Ellison.
He worked for Moretti Imports for seventeen years.”
“I know.”
“He kept telling me he was innocent after your family accused him.
I believed him because he was my father.
That wasn’t evidence.”
Vincent said nothing.
“Three months ago, a man named Arthur Brennan contacted us.
He was a courier for your father’s accountants.
He said there had been two sets of books during the year the money disappeared.
One official.
One private.
He remembered delivering the private ledger here the night before my father was accused.”
“To whom?”
“He didn’t know.
Someone met him at the service entrance.”
“And you thought you could walk into my house and find it?”
“I thought being a maid would give me access to rooms lawyers never would.”
“That sounds remarkably close to admitting you entered under false pretenses.”
“I did.”
The immediate admission surprised him.
Mara lifted her chin.
“I lied about my name.
I lied about why I wanted the job.
I did not steal from you, and I did not come here to hurt you.”
Vincent looked toward the table again.
“Yet I treated you like you had.”
She did not spare him.
“Yes.”
The bluntness should have angered him.
Instead it embarrassed him.
He walked to the fireplace and stared at the cold grate.
“The pocket watch that disappeared on your fifth day wasn’t one of my tests.”
Mara’s eyes narrowed.
“What?”
“The cash and bracelet were mine.
The watch wasn’t.”
“And the cameras failed at exactly the same time.”
“Yes.”
“Who controls the security schedule?”
Vincent already knew the answer.
Enzo.
He turned back toward her.
Mara saw the realization before he spoke.
“You thought I took the watch because someone wanted you looking at me,” she said.
Vincent’s silence answered.
That evening, he ordered his head of security, Gabriel Costa, to restore archived system logs without informing Enzo.
Mara was told to return to her room.
She expected to be escorted from the estate by morning.
Instead, at 1:17 a.m., Mrs.
Doyle knocked
