Chapter 2 – Blood Never Lies
Ben's innocent question lingered in Hannah's mind long after the little boy ran back toward the servants' hallway.
She rested her palm against her stomach.
"I'll know soon enough," she whispered.
The baby answered with another tiny kick.
For a moment, it almost made her forget why she'd entered Carver Manor in the first place.
Almost.
That evening, while the engagement party reached its peak upstairs, Hannah quietly slipped into the estate's old archive room.
Martin had accidentally mentioned weeks ago that Daniel never threw away financial records.
Everything dating back twenty years remained stored beneath the mansion.
Dust floated through the narrow basement corridor.
She unlocked the maintenance cabinet she'd secretly copied a key for.
Beyond it sat dozens of metal filing shelves.
Shipping invoices.
Tax records.
Corporate ledgers.
She searched methodically.
Whitlock Shipping.
Carver Logistics.
Harbor Holdings.
Nothing.
Then she noticed one cabinet without a label.
Locked.
Much newer than the others.
Inside her apron pocket, she removed a tiny skeleton key Aaron had hidden inside his toolbox months before his death.
He'd once smiled mysteriously and said,
"If anything ever happens to me...trust old locks more than new people."
The lock clicked.
Inside were only three folders.
The first contained offshore transfers totaling over eighty million dollars.
The second listed shell companies operating under Daniel Carver's corporate umbrella.
The third froze Hannah's blood.
Every forged loan connected to dead dockworkers.
Aaron Brooks.
Samuel Ortiz.
Kevin Doyle.
Sixteen names.
Each man had supposedly borrowed enormous sums shortly before dying in "accidents."
Aaron hadn't owed anyone a penny.
Someone had created debts after killing them.
Suddenly footsteps echoed outside.
She closed the drawer.
Too late.
The basement door opened.
Claire Whitlock stood there.
"So..."
Claire smiled coldly.
"I knew you weren't just a maid."
An hour later...
Claire ordered Hannah upstairs before forty wealthy guests.
The accusations came quickly.
"She was stealing."
"I caught her searching Daniel's private records."
"I warned everyone this girl couldn't be trusted."
No one questioned her.
Who would believe a pregnant servant over the future Mrs. Carver?
Then Claire noticed Hannah's long brown hair.
"You've always seemed awfully proud of this."
She picked up decorative tailoring scissors from the gift table.
The ballroom watched.
Nobody intervened.
The blades closed.
One thick lock fell.
Then another.
Hannah remained silent.
Not because she wasn't afraid.
Because she had already photographed every page inside the hidden cabinet.
The evidence rested safely inside the tiny memory card sewn beneath the lining of her maternity dress.
Claire had won the humiliation.
Hannah still held the truth.
May you like
And then...
Daniel walked in.
