Chapter 4 - A GLINT OF DOUBT
Emily looked up at him, startled—genuinely startled, as though the sentence had arrived in a language she had stopped expecting to hear.
But Nathan had already turned toward the house.
Somewhere beneath the steady rhythm of the falling rain, a question he had buried for more than twenty years had quietly opened one eye. And for the first time since that forgotten night, he wondered whether the greatest secret inside Blackwood Estate had never been lost at all.
Inside the sprawling mansion, the atmosphere shifted instantly from panic to calculated suspicion. Nathan walked straight into his private study, his gaze sweeping over the mahogany desk where the East Wing files were supposedly breached. The lock was untouched. There was no sign of forced entry. Only someone with security clearance—or a master key—could have accessed the drawer.
Samuel followed him in, closing the heavy oak door behind them. "The guards were quick to blame her, sir. Too quick."
"Fear makes men sloppy," Nathan replied coldly, turning the silver pendant over in his palm. "Find out who assigned her to the East Library yesterday. I want every security camera log from the past forty-eight hours pulled to my terminal within the hour."
"And the girl?" Samuel asked, watching his employer carefully.
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"Move her out of the servants' quarters," Nathan ordered after a brief pause. "Put her in the west guest suite. Guarded, but comfortable. If someone is trying to frame her to cover a corporate leak, she's safer under our roof than out on the street."
Samuel bowed his head. "Right away, Mr. Blackwood."
