Chapter 5 - The Ride
Grant sat in the back of the SUV with Noah in his arms and me beside him, while Vivienne’s attorney started calling before we even cleared the gate.
I knew because Grant’s phone buzzed three times in under a minute. He ignored each one. Outside, afternoon light flashed through the window in warm gold stripes as the city moved around us, indifferent and ordinary. Inside the car, Noah leaned weakly against my chest after finally tiring himself out from crying.
Every time the vehicle hit a bump, pain pulsed through my skull.
Grant noticed. “If you feel nauseous, say it.”
“I’m okay.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
I looked down at Noah’s pale lashes still damp from tears. “I’ll say it if I need to.”
Grant nodded once. It wasn’t softness, exactly. Just focus. Efficient concern. But underneath it I sensed something deeper and more unstable—rage forced into useful channels because useless rage could cost him his son.
Across from us, Eli scrolled through messages on a secured tablet. “Dawson wants the memory card preserved untouched. He recommends independent extraction and chain-of-custody documentation.”
Grant said, “Done.”
He finally checked one missed call, then slid the phone back into his pocket. “Vivienne says she was defending herself.”
“From a baby?” I asked.
His mouth tightened.
Eli looked up. “Her attorney is requesting that any footage review wait until counsel is present.”
“Then counsel can wait,” Grant said. “The card gets logged the second we arrive.”
I studied him then. Before that day, I had known Grant as a distant but attentive father. A man who left early, returned late, signed checks, noticed details, remembered schedules, and spoke to me with clipped respect. I also knew he had been seeing Vivienne seriously for six months, despite my private wish that he’d see what she was underneath the polished charm.
What I did not know was how far he would go once he did.
“Did you ever see her act like this before?” he asked me suddenly.
There it was—the question I had feared.
I told the truth. “Not this openly.”
“Meaning?”
I swallowed. “She was rough with Noah sometimes. Pinching when he cried. Snatching toys out of his hands. Once she squeezed his arm hard enough to leave a mark, but it was faint by the time I saw it clearly.”
Grant went perfectly still.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Because I had no proof. Because women like Vivienne weaponized doubt. Because one accusation from staff against the wealthy girlfriend always sounded like resentment until the blood was on the carpet.
“I should have,” I said. “I didn’t think you’d believe me without something solid.”
That hurt him. I saw it land.
Not because I insulted him. Because I may have been right.
He looked down at Noah, who stirred against his suit jacket, and spoke so softly I almost missed it. “I would have checked.”
“Would you have listened?” I asked before I could stop myself.
Eli wisely looked back down at the tablet.
Grant didn’t answer right away. The hum of the road filled the space between us. At last he said, “I’m listening now.”
It wasn’t a defense. It was an admission shaped like one.
At the emergency entrance, things moved quickly. Private room. Registration pulled in advance. Security posted because the Mercer name drew attention even in crisis. Noah was taken for imaging. I was led separately for stitches and concussion screening. Before we were split up, Grant handed the memory card to hospital security for formal evidence storage under Dawson’s instructions.
One transfer. Two witnesses. Signature. Time stamp.
Real process.
Reward again.
But consequences came immediately. As a nurse guided me down the corridor, she lowered her voice and said, “There’s a woman outside claiming to be family. She’s demanding access.”
Vivienne.
I stopped walking. “Don’t let her near him.”
The nurse’s expression sharpened. “She won’t be.”
Inside the treatment room, while a physician assistant irrigated the cut on my head, my phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out with numb fingers.
Unknown number.
I answered.
A woman’s voice said, cool and precise, “Ms. Monroe, this is Celeste Weller, counsel for Ms. Cross. I advise you to be extremely careful about the allegations you make from this point forward.”
I closed my eyes for one beat. “A child is at the hospital because she kicked him.”
“That remains contested.”
The phrase was so disgusting in context that I almost laughed.
Then Celeste added, “If you continue making inflammatory claims, my client will have no choice but to review your conduct in that home, including your access to Mr. Mercer’s personal affairs.”
A threat.
Not just to my job.
To my character. My motives. My presence in that house.
They were not going to argue only that I was wrong.
May you like
They were going to argue I was dangerous.
📖 Vivienne’s lawyer didn’t just dispute the assault—she started building a case against me, and suddenly proving the truth meant surviving an attack on my own name. 👇
