Cain's first steps into the Dilworth mansion were silent ones. Her gaze swept across the marble floors, chandeliers, and carefully arranged flowers that masked the rot within. Her cover: a maid named Elara, sent by a luxury staffing agency with deep connections—carefully fabricated by the agency she served.
She noted the cameras, the placement of guards, the behavior of the family.
Damien Dilworth—spoiled, bored, cruel. Vincent—quieter, colder, calculated.
But it was Helena who studied Cain with the eyes of a woman who trusted no one.
Marcus barely glanced her way. His empire was rising too fast to care about help.
Cain worked without complaint. Cleaned rooms that didn't need cleaning. Polished already polished silver. Waited.
Three days in, she saw it.
A tray—bread, water, a candle—lowered down a dumbwaiter behind the kitchen.
Documents followed.
Curious, Cain checked the kitchen logs. No one ever signed for those trays.
That night, she followed the dumbwaiter's path. It led to a locked panel in the wall, masked with fake tiling.
She waited.
Two hours later, she heard it: footsteps, soft and regular. A shadow moved through the hall and vanished into the panel.
The next day, she planted a listening device under the tray.
The recordings sent chills through her bones.
A child's voice, quiet but razor sharp, dissecting markets, companies, movements, currencies.
No hesitation. No doubt.
And then—nothing. Just silence. Like the world ended after the words were spoken.
Cain sat alone that night, staring at the waveform, at the voice that didn't belong to any child she'd ever heard.
"This is what they've been hiding," she whispered.
But why keep him down there? Why not raise him in the open? Train him formally?
The answer came in the next recording.
A slap. A muffled cry.
Damien's voice: "Wrong again, rat. No fruit today."
Cain's jaw clenched.
The mission had just changed.
[To be continued...]