I Saved My Boss's Mute Daughter From His Cruel Fiancée Now I'm Being Framed

My apartment was a shoebox on the wrong side of the river, an hour away from the Callahan estate. The wallpaper was peeling, the radiator hissed like an angry snake, and the locks were flimsy.

But right now, it was a fortress.

I locked the deadbolt, slid the chain into place, and carried Lily to the faded velvet sofa. She hadn't made a sound the entire ride. She just sat there, clutching my jacket, her eyes blank and distant.

"Lily?" I knelt in front of her, keeping my voice soft, pushing my own panic down. "Can I look at your hair, sweetheart? I just want to make sure you're okay."

She blinked slowly, then gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod.

I gently turned her head. In the harsh fluorescent light of my living room, the damage made me physically sick. Renata hadn't just singed the ends. A chunk of Lily’s beautiful honey-blonde hair was burned away right at the scalp, leaving an angry, blistered red burn mark behind her left ear.

Tears pricked my eyes. That vicious, cold-blooded witch.

I went to the bathroom, grabbed a first-aid kit, and carefully applied burn ointment to her skin. Lily flinched, but she didn't cry. She just stared at me with those massive blue eyes—eyes that looked exactly like her father’s.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. It had been buzzing non-stop for an hour.

I pulled it out. 14 Missed Calls from UNKNOWN CALLER.

Then, a text message popped up on the screen. It wasn't from Renata. It was from a number I didn't recognize.

"You have exactly one hour to return my daughter before I issue a statewide AMBER alert and ruin your life. — Grant Callahan."

My breath hitched. Grant didn't know the truth. He was being fed Renata’s lies. If I took Lily back now, he would hand me over to the cops and hand Lily right back to her abuser.

I needed proof. But how do you prove the word of a fired, broke nanny against a billionaire's flawless fiancée when the only witness hasn't spoken a word in two years?