Chapter 1 - The Belt Behind Victoria’s Leg
The bouquet of white roses fell out of my hand the moment I saw my eight-year-old daughter standing on a wooden stool with my ten-month-old son strapped to her back.
“Nora?”
She turned toward me so fast that water flew from her hair.
Her pale pink shirt was soaked completely through. Soap covered both forearms. Finn was secured inside the carrier against her back, fussing while she struggled over a sink piled high with dirty dishes.
Victoria stood directly behind her.
My wife was holding a leather belt.
“I’m trying!” Nora cried.
A wet plate slipped from her trembling fingers.
It struck the stainless-steel sink with a sharp crack.
Victoria immediately raised the belt and lashed it down against the countertop beside Nora.
“Then you need to try harder!”
I crossed the kitchen before my mind finished understanding what I was seeing.
The flowers hit the hardwood somewhere behind me.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Victoria spun around.
Her face changed instantly.
The anger disappeared.
The belt lowered.
I reached Nora first.
“Don’t move, sweetheart.”
I unfastened Finn from the carrier, pulled him safely against my chest, then lifted Nora from the stool with my free arm.
She wrapped both arms around my neck.
She was shaking.
Finn buried his face against my shoulder.
Victoria slid the belt behind her leg.
“What the hell are you doing to my kids?”
“Bennett, calm down.”
“Answer me.”
“It isn’t what it looks like.”
I looked at Nora’s wrists.
Red marks circled both of them.
Not deep.
Not bleeding.
But visible.
“What happened to your wrists?”
Nora started crying again.
Victoria stepped forward.
“She gets dramatic when she doesn’t want chores.”
I backed away.
“Don’t come closer.”
“Bennett.”
“Don’t touch either of them.”
Victoria stopped.
Something hardened behind her eyes.
I had seen my wife angry before.
I had never seen her caught.
There is a difference.
The Manhattan skyline stretched beyond the penthouse windows in bright afternoon light. I had left the office early because Victoria told me she had a migraine.
I bought her roses.
I thought I was surprising my wife.
Instead, I found my daughter washing dishes like a servant while carrying a baby on her back.
Nora pressed her face into my jacket.
“She made me carry Finn.”
My throat tightened.
“How long?”
Victoria answered before Nora could.
“Twenty minutes.”
Nora shook her head.
My entire body went still.
“How long, Nora?”
She whispered, “When you go to work.”
Victoria’s face changed again.
“Nora.”
My daughter flinched.
I saw it.
So did Victoria.
That one movement did more than every explanation she could have given me.
I walked toward the kitchen doorway.
Victoria moved with me.
“Where are you going?”
“Bedroom.”
“You’re not taking Finn.”
I stopped.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m his mother.”
That was true.
Finn was our son.
Nora was my daughter from my first marriage, and Victoria had legally adopted her fourteen months earlier.
Until that moment, I had believed that adoption meant something beautiful.
I looked at the belt.
Then at her.
“Move.”
She did.
I carried both children toward the hall.
That was when Nora twisted in my arms.
“Daddy.”
“What?”
She pointed back toward the kitchen.
The baby monitor sat on the counter near the fruit bowl.
A tiny green recording light blinked.
I followed her finger.
Victoria did too.
The color drained from her face.
“Daddy…”
Nora’s voice broke.
“She didn’t do it alone.”
I turned toward my wife.
Victoria stared at the baby monitor.
Then she suddenly lunged toward it.
I stepped between her and the counter.
“Don’t.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain.”
She stopped.
Nora whispered against my shoulder.
“Uncle Grant comes when you’re gone.”
My older brother.
Grant Ashford.
The man who managed half our family’s investment structure.
The man who had been best man at my wedding.
The man who had told me Victoria was the best thing that happened to Nora after Caroline died.
My hand tightened around Finn.
The baby monitor light kept blinking.
Victoria looked at it like it was a loaded gun.
And that was when I knew the worst thing in my kitchen wasn’t the belt.
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It was whatever that camera had already seen.
📖 Read what the baby monitor recorded when Grant came to my penthouse—and why Nora had been ordered never to tell me in CHAPTER 2. 👇
