Chapter 4 - The Camera Adrian Forgot
I called Nora from the hospital.
She answered before the first ring had finished.
“Mara?”
Her voice shook.
“Are you okay?”
“I will be.”
She started crying.
“I should have come into the room.”
“No.”
I closed my eyes.
“You could have been hurt too.”
“I heard him yelling.”
She lowered her voice.
“Then I heard Vanessa laughing.”
My stomach turned.
“What did you see?”
“I came through the service hallway after the dinner staff left.”
She paused.
“The door was partly open.”
I waited.
“I saw you on the floor.”
Her voice cracked.
“I saw Mr. Vale holding the crop.”
Mason, standing beside the window, looked at me sharply.
I put the call on speaker.
“Nora, you mentioned a camera.”
“Yes.”
“The entrance hall cameras were removed last year.”
“The visible ones were.”
I frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“After the break-in at the neighboring estate, the security company installed a backup camera inside the smoke sensor near the east corridor.”
I remembered approving that upgrade.
Adrian had not attended the security meeting.
He had been in London.
“Does it record the entrance hall?”
“Part of it.”
Mason stepped closer.
“Nora, do not access the system.”
She immediately went silent.
“This is Mason Reid.”
“I know who you are.”
“Do not copy anything.”
He spoke carefully.
“Do not delete anything either.”
“Okay.”
“We will have forensic personnel preserve the original system.”
“Understood.”
After the call ended, Mason looked at me.
“If that footage exists, it changes everything.”
I looked toward the hospital room door.
“I don't want it online.”
“It won’t be released by us.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
My father arrived just before midnight.
There was no entourage.
No dramatic line of black cars.
He walked into my hospital room wearing a dark overcoat over a white shirt with no tie.
He looked older than he had the last time I saw him.
Or perhaps I had simply never seen him frightened before.
Dad stopped beside the bed.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then he carefully took my hand.
“I’m sorry.”
I shook my head.
“Don't.”
“I knew he was dangerous.”
“You knew he was ambitious.”
“I knew ambition was the only language he respected.”
I looked away.
“I chose him.”
“You loved him.”
“I defended him against you.”
“Yes.”
“You were right.”
Dad pulled the chair closer.
“I would rather have been wrong.”
Those words nearly broke me.
He did not lecture me.
He did not remind me of warnings.
He simply sat beside me.
After several minutes, he asked, “What do you want?”
I looked at him.
“What do you mean?”
“I know what I want.”
His eyes were cold.
“I want every lender to call every obligation, every board member to remove him, every investor to walk away, and every attorney in this city to know exactly what he did.”
He paused.
“But this is not my decision.”
That mattered.
More than he probably understood.
All evening, men had made decisions about my life.
Adrian had decided I deserved punishment.
He had decided I should be divorced.
He had decided what I should receive.
He had decided where I would live.
My father could have become another powerful man deciding what happened next.
Instead, he asked.
“What do you want, Mara?”
I thought about the thousands of employees whose lives depended on Vale Industries.
I thought about the company Adrian had built partly through my quiet help.
I thought about Vanessa.
I thought about the twenty marks on my back.
Then I answered.
“I want Adrian removed.”
Dad nodded.
“From the company?”
“From everything he can use to hurt other people.”
Mason’s phone rang.
He stepped into the hallway.
Thirty seconds later, he returned.
“The security footage has been preserved.”
I looked at him.
“Did it record everything?”
“No.”
My chest tightened.
Mason hesitated.
“It recorded enough.”
Dad stood.
Then Mason added something that none of us expected.
“And Vanessa appears to be holding a second phone during the incident.”
I stared at him.
“Why?”
May you like
Mason looked toward my father.
“We believe she may have been recording it herself.”
