Chapter 2 - THE LITTLE BOY WITH THE BLUE CAST The hospital smelled of antiseptic and rain.
Victor sat beside Ethan’s bed without speaking.
A blue cast wrapped the toddler’s arm.
Dr. Moreno stood at the foot of the bed.
“The fracture isn't permanent,” he said carefully. “But it was caused by twisting force.”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
“How certain are you?”
“Very.”
Lily sat several feet away while a nurse examined the bruising across her abdomen.
She kept looking at Ethan.
Not Victor.
Not Serena.
Ethan.
Victor finally turned toward her.
“You were with him for six months.”
“Yes.”
“Did Serena hurt him before tonight?”
Lily hesitated.
Victor waited.
“I saw bruises.”
His eyes sharpened.
“How many times?”
“Three.”
“And you said nothing?”
“I told Mrs. Vale.”
Victor’s face hardened.
“What did she say?”
“That toddlers bruise.”
“And you believed her?”
“No.”
“Then why didn't you come to me?”
Lily gave a bitter laugh.
“When?”
Victor said nothing.
“You were in New York,” she continued. “Then Miami. Then Montreal. Whenever you came home, Serena was beside you.”
Her voice trembled.
“She told everyone I was unstable.”
Victor looked at her.
“She threatened you?”
“She threatened my mother.”
His expression changed.
“What about your mother?”
Lily lowered her eyes.
“She needs dialysis.”
“How is Serena connected?”
Lily swallowed.
“The Blackwood Foundation paid the insurance.”
Victor went completely still.
“I never authorized that.”
Neither did Lily.
But Serena had.
Marco entered carrying a folder.
“Sir.”
Victor looked up.
“We checked the foundation records.”
He placed the papers on the table.
The payments had been authorized through Serena.
Lily’s mother’s treatment had been used as leverage.
Victor looked at Lily.
“She bought your silence.”
Lily shook her head.
“No.”
She met his eyes.
“She bought my fear.”
That distinction stayed with him.
Then Marco spoke again.
“Mrs. Vale is missing.”
Victor stood.
“How?”
“She escaped through the service tunnel.”
The tunnel only senior household personnel knew existed.
Then another revelation.
The foyer camera had been disabled from Mrs. Vale’s account.
The woman who had worked for the Blackwoods for twenty-two years had been protecting Serena.
A child-services investigator arrived.
Dana Brooks.
She asked Lily for a statement.
Lily looked at Ethan.
Then at Victor.
He said nothing.
No pressure.
No command.
For the first time, the decision belonged entirely to her.
“Yes,” Lily whispered.
“I’ll testify.”
Her testimony lasted two hours.
She described the dragging.
The kick.
The bruises.
The threats.
Then she showed them the bottle she had hidden.
Children’s sleep medication.
Except it wasn't ordinary sleep medicine.
Dr. Moreno examined it.
His face changed.
“This is a powerful sedative.”
For a fourteen-month-old child, the dosage could have been dangerous.
Victor stared at the bottle.
“How long?”
Lily shook her head.
“I don't know.”
Then Marco's phone rang.
They had found Mrs. Vale.
She was alive.
But she had been caught burning documents at Serena's condominium.
Victor looked at Ethan.
May you like
Then at Lily.
“Bring me every page she failed to destroy.”
