Chapter 5 - The Phone Under the Rabbit
Marcus sat beside Lily again.
“Where is the phone?”
Lily looked at the white stuffed rabbit on the chair.
One of its ears had been cut open and badly stitched.
Miranda moved first.
Marcus saw her shoulder tense.
He reached the rabbit before she did.
“Give that to me,” Miranda demanded.
“It belongs to Lily.”
“It may contain hospital equipment.”
Marcus looked at her.
“Inside a toy?”
Miranda stopped speaking.
Marcus examined the rabbit carefully.
A hard shape pressed beneath the stuffing.
The stitching had been opened recently and closed in a hurry.
He removed a small prepaid phone.
Lily began breathing faster.
Marcus placed it where she could see.
“You did nothing wrong.”
“I took it from Grandpa’s office.”
Charles’s face changed.
“You stole from me.”
Marcus stood between him and the bed.
“She is nine.”
“She entered a private room.”
“Why did she need evidence from her own family?”
Lily looked down.
“I heard Mom and Grandpa yelling.”
“About what?”
“Money.”
Marcus already knew the Sterlings measured life through control.
Miranda came from a family that owned hotels, land, and several medical facilities.
Her marriage to Marcus had angered Charles from the beginning.
He considered a career soldier beneath them.
When Marcus deployed, Miranda moved Lily back into the family estate.
She called it temporary.
Marcus had begun to suspect it was not.
Lily continued.
“Grandpa said Mom had to make me say I wanted to stay there.”
Marcus looked at Miranda.
She avoided his eyes.
Lily had hidden near Charles’s office and recorded part of the argument.
The phone was locked with a four-digit code.
Marcus asked her for it.
She whispered, “0217.”
The time she called him.
He entered the numbers.
One video appeared.
It was eleven minutes long.
Charles stepped forward.
“That device contains illegally recorded private conversations.”
Marcus held it out of reach.
“So you know what is on it.”
Charles’s lips tightened.
Miranda began to cry.
“Marcus, please. Lily misunderstood.”
Marcus pressed play.
Charles’s recorded voice filled the room.
“If Marcus gets custody, we lose control of the trust.”
Then Miranda answered.
“I cannot make her accuse him of something he didn’t do.”
The video continued.
A third voice spoke.
A man.
“Then frighten the child until she cooperates.”
Lily hid her face.
Marcus recognized the third voice.
May you like
It belonged to his brother-in-law, Grant Sterling.
👉 Grant had ordered Lily frightened into lying about her father—and he had entered the hospital before Marcus arrived.
