The favorite word of men who believe tomorrow belongs to them.
“What else?”
“Beatrice says there were other incidents.”
“What incidents?”
Mateo glanced toward Lily’s room.
“She should tell you herself.”
I found Beatrice two floors below.
She was sitting in a treatment room with a bandage above her eyebrow and two fingers taped together.
When she saw me, she stood.
Immediately.
“Mr. Rossi.”
“Sit down.”
“I should check on Lily.”
“She’s sleeping.”
Her shoulders dropped.
“She’s all right?”
“Yes.”
Beatrice closed her eyes.
Relief transformed her face.
Not fear for her job.
Not concern about what Victoria might accuse her of.
Relief.
For Lily.
I sat opposite her.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her eyes opened.
“I tried.”
There are sentences that become mirrors.
I tried.
Three weeks of messages sat in my pocket.
I looked away first.
“You’re right.”
She seemed surprised.
I wasn’t a man accustomed to admitting that.
“You tried.”
Beatrice folded her hands.
Her injured fingers shook.
“What happened before last night?”
For several seconds she said nothing.
Then she told me.
Victoria had started small.
Correcting Lily’s posture.
Taking away desserts.
Telling her that crying was manipulative.
None of those things had alarmed Beatrice at first.
Then Victoria began dismissing staff whenever she spent time alone with Lily.
She called it bonding.
Lily began asking Beatrice to stay nearby.
Then came the comments.
“Your father needs a wife, not a baby hanging on him.”
“You’re too old to behave like this.”
“Your mother isn’t coming back.”
I closed my eyes.
That last sentence nearly made me stand.
Beatrice continued.
“She never said those things around you.”
“Of course not.”
“Lily begged me not to tell you.”
“Why?”
Beatrice looked at me with an expression I didn’t understand.
“Because Miss Kensington told her you would send me away if she caused trouble.”
I felt something inside me turn to ice.
“And Lily believed her?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Beatrice hesitated.
Then she said the one thing nobody in my world would have dared say.
“Because you’re gone a lot, Mr. Rossi.”
I stared at her.
She lowered her eyes.
But she didn’t take it back.
And she shouldn’t have.
I had given Lily everything except the one thing she could not buy for herself.
Me.
“What happened yesterday?”
Beatrice inhaled slowly.
“You left after breakfast.”
I remembered.
Lily had hugged my leg.
I had promised I would be home for dinner.
I wasn’t.
“Miss Kensington came around noon. At first everything was normal. Then Lily asked when you were coming home.”
Beatrice’s jaw tightened.
“Victoria told her you were busy preparing for your new life.”
“What does that mean?”
“I asked the same thing.”
Beatrice looked directly at me.
“She said once she became Mrs. Rossi, this house would have rules.”
I said nothing.
“Lily became upset. She said she didn’t want a new mother.”
“And Victoria?”
“She told Lily nobody was asking her permission.”
I stood.
Beatrice flinched.
That stopped me.
Not because she expected me to hit her.
Because after what happened, sudden movement frightened her.
I sat again.
“Continue.”
“Lily knocked over a vase when she backed away. Miss Kensington grabbed her arm. I told her to let go.”
Beatrice swallowed.
“She dragged Lily toward the cellar.”
My hands curled.
“I got between them.”
“That’s when she hit you?”
“Not yet.”
Not yet.
Those words stayed with me.
“She told me I was an employee and should remember my place. I told her my place was wherever Lily needed me.”
For the first time, Beatrice’s voice hardened.
“She pushed me. Then she put Lily in the cellar.”
“And locked it.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you call security?”
“I tried.”
She pointed toward her cracked phone.
“She knocked it away.”
“The guards?”
“Miss Kensington had already sent the two inside guards to the front gate. She said she was expecting a delivery.”
A coincidence.
Maybe.
But I no longer believed in coincidences where my daughter was concerned.
“Then what?”
“I tried to take the keys.”
Beatrice touched the bandage above her eyebrow.
“She hit me.”
“With the bottle.”
“Yes.”
“But you kept fighting.”
“She was crying.”
“Lily?”
Beatrice nodded.
“She was calling for you.”
Something tightened around my lungs.
“She kept saying, ‘My daddy is coming home.’”
I looked at the floor.
“And then?”
“Then she started wheezing.”
Beatrice’s voice broke.
“I begged Victoria to open the door.”
“What did Victoria say?”
Beatrice looked at me.
“She said Lily needed to learn that screaming wouldn’t make people obey her.”
For a moment, the hospital disappeared.
I saw the cellar.
The darkness.
My daughter on concrete.
“What happened next?”
“I tried to get the keys again. She pushed me down. I got back up.”
Beatrice’s eyes filled.
“I kept getting back up.”
I believed her.
Her body was proof.
“Then Lily stopped answering.”
Beatrice covered her mouth.
“I thought she was dead.”
I couldn’t speak.
“I threw a chair through the glass door leading into the hall. That’s what the guards heard.”
That explained the crash.
The one that had finally brought everyone running.
The one that happened moments before I arrived.
Beatrice wiped her eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
I stared at her.
“For what?”
“I should have gotten Lily out sooner.”
“No.”
My voice came out rough.
“You were the only person in that house who didn’t fail her.”
She looked at me.
I had never seen Beatrice cry before.
Not once.
Now a tear slid down her cheek.
I stood.
This time she didn’t flinch.
I went to the door.
“Mr. Rossi?”
I stopped.
“There’s something else.”
I turned.
Beatrice looked frightened again.
Not of Victoria.
Of what she was about to tell me.
“Last week Lily asked me a question.”
“What question?”
“She asked whether fathers stop loving their daughters when they get new wives.”
The room became very quiet.
And suddenly I understood that the worst thing Victoria had done might not have started in the cellar.
It had started much earlier.
