She took one look at the boy’s face and her eyes filled with tears.
“Oh, baby,” she whispered, pulling him into a careful hug that didn’t squeeze. “You’re safe now.”
Maria made cocoa. She let Matthew eat three cookies without asking if he was allowed. She didn’t lecture. She just sat on the floor beside him, letting him rest his head against her knee while he told her everything in that same fragile whisper.
“Every night,” he said. “She comes into my room when Daddy’s gone. She says I’m bad. That I’m making her sad. That I need to learn to be good or she’ll send me away where no one can find me. She uses the belt from the kitchen drawer. She counts. And she… she makes sure I can’t move.”
Robert listened from the doorway, jaw clenched so tight his teeth ached.
Valerie Castle.
The charity board member who smiled for photos with sick kids. The woman who had already picked out china for the wedding. The woman who had been alone with an eight-year-old boy every single night for the past year.
And Alexander Harrison?
The driver didn’t know yet. But he was about to find out.
They called the number Robert had memorized from the mansion files—Alexander’s private emergency line. It rang once before his father’s voice answered, calm and rich and used to the world bending around him.
“Robert? Is everything all right?”
Matthew’s eyes widened. He grabbed Robert’s shirt.
“Tell him,” he mouthed, terrified.
Robert covered the phone with one hand. “Matthew, your father needs to know. Right now. This isn’t a secret anymore.”
He held the phone out.
Matthew’s small hand shook as he took it. His voice came out tiny and scared and so brave it broke Robert’s heart.
“Daddy… she’s hurting me. Every night. Please come home.”
There was a long silence on the other end.
