Chapter 3
Marissa was not gone.
She was hiding.
One of my oldest guards found her in a small apartment owned by her sister across town. She returned before dawn, carrying nothing except a coat and the anger of a woman who had spent twenty years learning exactly when servants are expected to stay silent.
She hugged my mother first.
Not me.
Correct priority.
Then she placed a small paper shopping receipt on my desk.
“Mrs. Victoria’s care account paid for all of it.”
I looked at the receipt.
Designer clothing.
Jewelry.
Private dining.
Luxury hotel suite.
I pushed it away.
“Who?”
“Catherine and Serena mostly.”
Marcus used my mother’s designated household-care money as a private purse.
But that alone did not explain why.
He had access to plenty of money through me.
Stealing elder-care funds was unnecessarily ugly.
Unless the source mattered.
Marissa understood my question.
“He wanted the household books to show Mrs. Victoria was expensive.”
I stared.
There.
A narrative again.
If large amounts were leaving her care account while her condition appeared to worsen, Marcus could claim my mother’s needs were becoming unsustainable.
Then what?
Marissa answered before I asked.
“He kept saying the east residence would be more appropriate.”
The east residence.
A remote Romano property used for older relatives who wanted privacy.
Or older relatives the family wanted out of sight.
“Move Victoria out.”
“Yes.”
“And Catherine takes her place.”
Marissa looked toward the pendant sitting on my desk now.
“Yes.”
I leaned back.
This was not random theft.
Marcus was manufacturing evidence that my mother had become expensive, unstable, and difficult.
Meanwhile Catherine wore the matriarch pendant, hosted dinners, and slowly occupied the space Victoria was supposed to leave.
“What about Serena?”
Marissa’s expression hardened.
“She sat in your chair.”
I remembered the photograph.
“How often?”
“Every private dinner after the first week.”
My jaw tightened.
Marcus had not only been replacing my mother.
He had been rehearsing replacement for me.
Then Marissa gave me the detail that changed the whole scale.
“Boss… some of the men started calling Serena Mrs. Hale.”
I looked at her.
Marcus’s surname.
Not Romano.
His.
The house was being shifted away from Romano identity while I was still alive.
Not a coup.
Not yet.
Something quieter.
May you like
Domestic replacement first.
Political replacement later.
