Chapter 3 - The Ghost in the Slums
The air in the grand foyer turned to absolute ice. Renata’s fingers dug into the marble edge of the table.
"The shelters?" Renata gasped, her eyes darting frantically toward the armed guards standing in the corners of the room. "Sir, you shouldn't go to those dangerous places without a full detail! It isn't safe!"
"It certainly wasn't safe for Clara," Lorenzo whispered, his voice vibrating with suppressed, demonic agony.
Clara was Lorenzo’s beautiful, kind-hearted wife. Exactly one year ago, while Lorenzo was out of the country orchestrating a massive syndicate merger, Clara had vanished.
When Lorenzo had rushed home, Renata presented him with a devastating narrative. Renata had forged financial documents and planted a bag of toxic oleander powder in Clara's vanity. The head maid claimed that Clara had been embezzling millions from the cartel to run away with a lover, and that Clara had been slowly poisoning Lorenzo’s evening whiskey.
Renata had thrown Clara out of the mansion in the middle of a freezing rainstorm, threatening that if Clara ever tried to take little Isabella, the cartel guards would shoot her on sight.
Lorenzo had been blinded by the forged evidence and the betrayal. He had spent the last twelve months a broken, ruthless shell of a man, believing his wife had tried to murder him and abandon their child.
"I found her, Renata," Lorenzo stated, his chest heaving with the weight of the tragedy. "She was scrubbing floors in a soup kitchen. She was living in a rusted car, freezing every single night, just to stay in the city so she could secretly watch Isabella play at the park through the fence."
Renata hyperventilated, the flawless illusion of her loyalty completely shattering.
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"She's lying to you!" Renata shrieked, completely dropping her respectful tone. "She's a manipulative thief, Lorenzo! She tried to kill you! I saved your life!"
👉 What undeniable proof will shatter the maid's desperate lie?
