Chapter 3
Celeste slapped me.
The sound cracked through the foyer.
My head turned with it.
Lily screamed from Marcus’s arms.
The guards surged forward, but I raised one hand.
“No.”
Celeste’s eyes shone with triumph.
She thought she had pulled me back into the old game.
Hit me.
Shame me.
Make me react.
Then call me unstable.
My father had done it for years.
Celeste had learned from the best.
I slowly turned back to her.
“Thank you,” I said.
Her smile faltered.
“For what?”
“For doing that under the foyer camera.”
Her face changed.
My father looked up.
So did Celeste.
Above the chandelier, the small black dome blinked red.
Recording.
Always recording.
My father had installed it after a robbery ten years ago.
He had forgotten his own weapon could face him.
I looked at Marcus.
“Send the footage to Daniel Price.”
Daniel was our family attorney.
Marcus nodded.
My father’s cane struck the floor.
“You will do no such thing.”
Marcus did not even look at him.
“It has already uploaded, sir.”
Celeste stepped back.
“You planned this.”
“No,” I said. “You did.”
Lily was outside now with another guard and Mrs. Vale, the housekeeper who had loved her since birth.
I could breathe again.
Barely.
My father descended the stairs.
“You are making a mistake.”
“No. I made my mistake when I trusted you with my child.”
His eyes darkened.
“You have no idea what I protected this family from.”
“I know exactly what you protected,” I said. “Your control.”
Celeste laughed nervously.
“He is emotional. He has been unstable since Emma died.”
There it was.
The lie they had been building.
I looked at my father.
“Is that why you wanted Lily gone? So you could declare me unfit?”
He said nothing.
But his silence answered.
Then the front doors opened.
Daniel Price walked in with a black folder under his arm.
Behind him came two police officers.
My father’s face drained.
Daniel looked at me first.
Then at the camera.
Then at the broken shoe on the stairs.
May you like
His voice was quiet.
“Adrian, tell me everything.”
