Chapter 4 - The Unmasking
Richard stood frozen under the warm glow of the chandelier, his chest heaving as he looked between his weeping wife and the bruised woman struggling to breathe on the marble floor.
Victoria rushed to his side, clutching his grey suit lapels with a desperation that seemed entirely genuine to anyone who didn't know her. "She's insane, Richard! She took him right out of the nursery! Look at him—he's terrified! Do something!"
Clara looked up from the floor, her vision blurring with tears of pain and humiliation. She tried to raise her voice, to scream the truth, but the wind had been knocked so thoroughly from her chest that she could only manage a ragged, breathy whisper. "Richard... please... she kicked me... she tried to..."
Victoria’s sob grew louder, drowning out Clara’s weak defense. "Don't listen to her lies! Call security! She's a trespasser, a thief!"
Richard stared down at Victoria. His dark eyes, usually reserved and analytical, narrowed as he took in the details of his wife’s appearance: her unblemished burgundy suit, her perfectly set hair, the lack of a single physical mark suggesting she had been attacked. Then, his gaze shifted past her to the floor—where the faint black scuff mark from Victoria’s designer heel was clearly visible right beside Clara’s fallen body.
The silence that settled over the hallway grew dense, suffocating, and heavy.
"Richard?" Victoria whispered, her frantic tone faltering slightly as she noticed the stony, unyielding quiet in his demeanor. "Why are you looking at me like that? Call them!"
Slowly, deliberately, Richard lowered his hands from his lapels, stepping back from his wife's grasp. The panic in his eyes turned into something far darker, cold, and terrible.
"You think I'm blind, Victoria?" Richard said, his voice dropping into a low, deadly register that cut through the sound of the infant's cries.
May you like
Victoria blinked, her tears pausing mid-fall. "What... what are you talking about?"
"I was standing at the top of the balcony terrace," Richard said, pointing a steady finger toward the open second-floor railing overlooking the hallway. "I came out when I heard the footfalls. I saw everything."
