Chapter 6 - Elena’s True Role
While Julian and Vanessa continued their pathetic, screaming recriminations on the bedroom carpet, I turned my attention back to Elena. She had moved to the side of the bed, gently stroking Noah’s forehead as the boy began to stir from his light sleep. Despite the chaos unfolding just feet away, her touch was extraordinarily gentle—the touch of someone who truly understood the fragility of a child's life.
“How is his pulse?” I asked softly, stepping up beside her.
“Strong and steady, Mr. Vance,” Elena murmured, keeping her eyes fixed on Noah’s monitor, which showed a normal, rhythmic heartbeat for the first time in nearly a month. “The saline flush is clearing the residual toxins from his system faster than I expected. He’s going to be weak for a few days, and his muscles will ache from the withdrawal of the paralytic, but there’s no permanent neurological damage. You caught it in time.”
“We caught it in time,” I corrected her. I looked at the woman whom my entire social circle had dismissed as a piece of human trash. When my initial suspicions about Noah’s illness had arisen—when the top pediatric specialists in the country couldn't explain why a healthy boy was suddenly suffering from targeted organ failure—I knew I couldn't hire a standard private investigator. A suit-and-tie detective lurking around the estate would have tipped Julian off instantly, causing him to destroy the evidence and vanish into the night.
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I needed an operative who could operate in the open without drawing a shred of suspicion from my elitist, snobbish family. When I discovered Elena’s file buried in a legal aid database—a brilliant former medical researcher who had sacrificed her career and taken a felony conviction to protect her younger sister from an abusive spouse—I knew she was the perfect camouflage. I offered her two hundred thousand dollars in cash, a full legal expungement team, and a clean slate if she would come into my house, play the part of a sullen, sticky-fingered domestic, and watch the people who were trying to murder my son.
“You earned every penny of your fee, Elena,” I whispered, ensuring my brother couldn't hear over his own frantic shouting. “And as soon as the police clear this room, my corporate attorneys are filing the paperwork to vacate your old conviction. You’re never going to have to hide behind that grifter label again.”
