Chapter 2 - The Iron Trap
I did not scream. I did not throw the bourbon in his face or drag Brooke by her carefully styled hair. I simply turned my back on them and carried my son up the winding mahogany staircase.
“That’s right, run away and pout!” Richard called out from below, his voice laced with mocking triumph. “We’ll discuss the new living arrangements when you’ve calmed down!”
I closed the door to the master suite and locked it. The heavy wood shut out the sound of his arrogance, leaving me in the quiet sanctuary of my room.
I set Ethan down gently on the edge of the large bed. His breathing was still ragged. I knelt in front of him, forcing a reassuring smile onto my face despite the hurricane of rage tearing through my mind.
“Mommy’s here,” I said softly, taking off his dirty shoes. “Everything is going to be okay. I promise.”
I carried him into the en-suite bathroom and started the warm water in the large tub. As I carefully peeled off the filthy dinosaur pajamas, I saw the full extent of their cruelty. Ethan’s small knees were scraped raw and bruised purple from crawling on the hard stone floors.
My hands shook, but not from sorrow. It was pure, unadulterated fury.
Before putting him in the water, I pulled out my phone and took clear, high-resolution photographs of his bruised knees, the dirt on his hands, and his tear-stained face. Ethan looked confused but trusted me implicitly.
“Are we playing a game, Mommy?” he asked, dipping his toes into the bubbles.
“Yes, baby. A very important game,” I replied, washing the dirt away with a soft sponge. “And Mommy is going to win.”
Once he was clean, dressed in fresh clothes, and happily watching a cartoon on my iPad with a bowl of fresh strawberries, I went to my walk-in closet and opened the hidden wall safe.
I pulled out my laptop and logged into the cloud server for the house’s security system. The cameras had been installed last year after a string of burglaries in our gated community. Richard had mocked the expense, calling me paranoid.
I scrubbed through the footage from the past forty-eight hours. My stomach churned as I watched the unedited reality of my home while I was in Chicago. I watched Brooke arrive with her suitcases. I watched Vivian fawn over the newborn. And then, I watched the sickening sequence from this morning: Vivian deliberately crushing a handful of crackers onto the floor, Richard laughing, and Ethan being shoved to his knees to clean it up while they mocked him.
I downloaded every single file to an encrypted external drive, making three separate backups.
Then, I made a phone call.
“Marcus,” I said when the deep voice answered on the second ring. Marcus Thorne was not just the lead attorney for Hayes Residential Partners; he was a shark in a tailored suit, a man my father had trusted with his life, and my godfather.
“Amanda. You’re back early. How was the Chicago summit?”
“Marcus, I need you at the house. Right now. Bring the trust documents, the prenuptial agreement, and the subsidiary ownership files for Whitman Construction.”
There was a brief pause on the line. The tone of my voice had told him everything he needed to know.
“Are we executing the contingency plan, Amanda?”
“We are executing a slaughter,” I replied, my voice cold and steady. “Bring security. I want two men from the private firm. We are evicting trespassers.”
“Give me fifteen minutes,” Marcus said. He didn't ask questions. He didn't offer empty sympathies. He just went to work.
I hung up the phone and looked at myself in the full-length mirror. My eyes were red, but there were no tears left to shed. The woman who had loved Richard Whitman—the woman who had overlooked his financial ineptitude and his mother’s snide comments out of a desperate desire for a complete family—was dead.
She had died on that marble floor alongside her son’s innocence.
I walked back to the bed and kissed the top of Ethan’s head. “Stay right here, sweetie. Mommy has to take out the trash.”
May you like
I unlocked the bedroom door and walked to the top of the stairs. I could hear laughter echoing from the living room. They were drinking my liquor, sitting on my furniture, celebrating their twisted victory.
I checked my watch. Fourteen minutes left. I took a deep breath, letting the ice settle firmly into my veins, and began my descent.
