Chapter 4 - THE MISTRESS WHO SAW TOO MUCH
Brin returned after visiting hours.
No satin dress this time.
No smugness.
She wore jeans, a black coat, and the look of a woman who had just realized the game she joined might involve actual blood.
Elena almost asked her to leave.
Then she noticed Brin’s shaking hands.
“What do you want?”
“To help.”
Elena gave a cold laugh.
“That would be a first.”
Brin flinched.
“I know what you think of me.”
“What should I think?”
Brin looked away.
“That I was sleeping with your husband.”
Elena said nothing.
Brin continued, “I wasn’t.”
The denial should have relieved her.
Instead it irritated her.
Because in the Ferris house, every truth arrived too late to be useful.
“Then why make it look that way?”
“Because Vesta asked me to stay close to him.”
Elena stared.
“Why?”
“She said if you felt isolated, you’d either leave or make mistakes.”
That sounded exactly like Vesta.
Not an emotional attack.
An environmental one.
Move the walls until the victim calls the fall her own choice.
Brin sat down without being asked.
“She hired me two years ago for the foundation expansion, but she promoted me faster than I deserved. Better office. Better pay. Better access. I thought she liked me.”
Elena almost smiled at the innocence of that.
“What changed?”
Brin’s eyes filled.
“The baby.”
“When Holden found out?”
“No. When Vesta found out before him.”
Elena leaned forward despite the pain.
“How?”
Brin hesitated.
“She went through your doctor’s billing reports.”
Elena felt sick.
Brin continued:
“She said if the pregnancy became official, certain board controls would shift. She also said you were impulsive and not suited to that kind of power.”
“And you believed her.”
“I believed she wanted leverage,” Brin whispered. “I didn’t think she wanted you hurt.”
Elena watched her carefully.
“What happened on the stairs?”
Brin swallowed.
“The camera above the landing was disabled twenty minutes before you fell.”
Elena’s heartbeat quickened.
“Who disabled it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was it Vesta?”
“She had the house security chief in her study before guests arrived.”
That was not proof.
But it was shape.
Motive.
Pattern.
Fear.
Elena asked the question she had avoided.
“And Holden?”
Brin closed her eyes.
“He knew Vesta used me to get under your skin.”
Elena went still.
“He let it happen?”
“He said he wanted to know what she was planning. He thought if he looked too protective, she’d move faster behind the scenes.”
The explanation hurt more than a real affair might have.
Because it was colder.
More strategic.
He had used Elena’s pain as surveillance bait.
Brin stood.
“I’m sorry.”
“You should be.”
“I know.”
She reached into her coat and removed a folded sheet of paper.
A security maintenance log.
Camera 4B—Upper Landing
Offline at 9:13 p.m.
Requested by: V.F.
Elena stared at the initials.
“Will you testify?”
Brin’s face changed.
Fear.
Real fear.
“If I do, she’ll destroy me.”
Elena looked at her.
“She already has.”
Brin nodded slowly.
Then she whispered:
“Holden isn’t the only person she’s done this to.”
“What does that mean?”
May you like
Brin’s eyes flicked toward the door.
“There was another woman before you.”
