Chapter 4 - The Camera Behind the Piano
I wanted every camera in the house.
Security told me something strange.
Most interior footage had been automatically deleted after seventy-two hours.
Victoria had requested the policy two years earlier.
“Privacy,” she had called it.
But one camera had not followed the deletion schedule.
An old motion camera behind the grand piano.
Installed before Victoria moved in.
Connected to a separate home-security backup account registered under Claire’s email.
Nobody remembered it existed.
Until Lily did.
“Mom installed it when I was little.”
“Why?”
“She thought I was sneaking downstairs for cookies.”
That sounded exactly like Claire.
We accessed the archive.
The footage was ugly.
Victoria screaming at Lily.
Victoria taking her phone.
Victoria ordering staff not to let Lily leave.
Victoria standing over her while she completed schoolwork.
Victoria telling her:
“Your father needs me more than he needs another problem.”
Then another video.
Three months earlier.
Victoria sat beside a man in our living room.
Marcus Hale.
My chief operating officer.
Not the psychiatrist.
A different Marcus.
Forty-two.
My closest business partner for eleven years.
He handed Victoria documents.
She kissed him.
Not on the cheek.
On the mouth.
I stared at the screen.
Lily looked away.
“You knew?”
“I saw them once.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Victoria said you knew.”
Of course she did.
The footage continued.
Marcus said:
“Once Lily signs, the Vale block gives us enough voting power.”
Victoria answered:
“And Arthur?”
“He’ll keep running the company.”
“He won’t notice.”
She smiled.
“He never does.”
That hurt because it was true.
Not always.
Enough.
Then Marcus asked:
“What happens if Lily refuses?”
Victoria’s voice became colder.
“Then we use the medical file.”
“An unstable eighteen-year-old does not control thirty-eight percent of a global company.”
Marcus laughed.
“And Arthur still thinks you’re protecting his daughter.”
Victoria answered:
“Arthur thinks whatever makes his life easier.”
I stopped the video.
I could not watch more.
Lily looked at me.
“Dad.”
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s not what I need.”
I looked at her.
“What do you need?”
“For you not to go crazy and destroy everything.”
The sentence surprised me.
She continued.
“I know you.”
“You’re going to fire everyone tonight.”
“Probably.”
“Don’t.”
“Why?”
“Because then Victoria says you’re unstable too.”
My daughter was eighteen.
And thinking more clearly than I was.
I sat back.
“All right.”
“What do we do?”
Lily looked at the security footage.
“We let them believe you don’t know.”
May you like
For the first time that night, I smiled.
Claire would have been proud.
