Chapter 5 - Vanessa’s Phone Had Recorded More Than My Slap
Vanessa threatened to release the video of me slapping her.
“Everyone will see what you’re really like.”
I told her:
“Release the whole thing.”
She didn’t.
That interested me.
Because the full recording began before I slapped her.
It included Richard’s hand in my hair.
My face hitting Lily’s cake.
Olivia laughing.
Lily screaming.
Vanessa apparently wanted a version where my reaction existed without what caused it.
My attorney requested preservation of the entire recording.
That created another problem for Vanessa.
Her phone automatically backed up long videos to a cloud account connected to Bennett Hospitality.
While the relevant materials were being preserved through proper channels, older recordings surfaced.
Most were harmless.
Wedding setups.
Parties.
Promotional clips.
One wasn’t.
It showed Olivia and Vanessa at the Bennett office after midnight.
The camera had apparently remained running after they finished filming an event reel.
Olivia’s voice:
“Never let Maya see final numbers.”
Vanessa laughed.
“She doesn’t care.”
“She cares when something affects Lily.”
“Then keep it away from Lily.”
I stopped the video.
My hands were trembling.
Then it continued.
Vanessa asked:
“Does Richard know about Margaret?”
Olivia answered:
“Enough.”
“And Julian?”
“Julian forgot that woman thirty years ago.”
Pause.
“If he remembers, we have bigger problems.”
I watched Olivia’s face.
No panic then.
Confidence.
She truly believed Grandma had disappeared permanently from the story.
Then Vanessa asked:
“Do you regret it?”
Olivia became silent.
“Regret what?”
“You know.”
Olivia’s expression hardened.
“She was going to ruin everything.”
The video ended moments later.
It did not prove exactly what Grandma had discovered.
But it proved Olivia still viewed her as a threat decades later.
Then Julian’s investigators found a surviving copy of one old ledger.
Grandma’s handwriting was in the margin.
Next to three suspicious vendor payments, she had written:
Ask Olivia why these addresses are all the same.
Thirty-one years later, the same accounting technique appeared in Bennett Hospitality.
Different company.
May you like
Different decade.
Same woman.
