Chapter 2 - THE LOCKED ESTATE
The estate gates sealed before the ambulance entered.
Security officers stood at every exit, but Sebastian ordered them not to touch the guests or confiscate phones.
“Record names,” he said. “Preserve footage. No one destroys anything.”
Eleanor pointed at the overturned table.
“My son has become violent.”
Sebastian did not argue.
“I flipped property. I will answer for it.”
That sentence silenced her more effectively than denial.
Paramedics lowered me onto a stretcher in the dining room. One cut away the damp fabric beneath Sebastian’s jacket to attach monitors.
My blood pressure was too high.
The baby’s heartbeat was fast but present.
“How far along?” the paramedic asked.
“Thirty-five weeks.”
“Any bleeding?”
“No.”
“Contractions?”
“I don’t know.”
Pain tightened again.
Sebastian took my hand.
My fingers barely closed around his.
A female officer named Mara Cole entered with two patrol officers. She photographed the broken table, food scraps, camera, and chicken bone lying near Eleanor’s heel.
Patricia Wren spoke first.
“Clara became hysterical during lunch. Sebastian arrived and destroyed the room.”
Officer Cole looked at my dress.
“How did the food get on her?”
“She was helping clear beneath the table.”
I turned my head toward Patricia.
“On my knees?”
No one answered.
Eleanor said I had suffered a pregnancy-related emotional episode and crawled beneath the table voluntarily.
Three women repeated versions of the same claim.
One said I begged to serve them.
Another said the bone had fallen near my face.
A third said Sebastian’s arrival frightened me.
The stories were not identical.
They were rehearsed around the same conclusion.
I was unstable.
They were witnesses.
Sebastian told Officer Cole he had recorded several seconds before entering.
He opened his phone.
The video showed the dining-room doors from the hallway.
Eleanor’s voice carried clearly.
She’s only good for giving me a grandson.
Then laughter.
Then my muffled refusal.
The video ended when Sebastian opened the doors.
Officer Cole instructed a technician to copy it immediately.
Eleanor’s attorney arrived while I was being wheeled out.
He tried to prevent police from accessing the ceiling camera, claiming the estate system contained privileged family-security information.
Officer Cole answered, “A device may have recorded suspected abuse of a pregnant woman. Preserve it.”
At the hospital, doctors monitored me for placental injury and early labor.
The baby settled after fluids and medication.
My lip required two stitches.
Bruises covered both knees.
My feet had small cuts from broken serving pieces beneath the table.
A nurse washed gravy from my hair while Sebastian sat outside speaking with police.
I watched brown water spiral into the basin.
Three days earlier, Eleanor had told me Sebastian wanted me to stay at the estate until he returned from London.
He had supposedly written:
Mom is hosting a quiet family luncheon. Please cooperate. I cannot handle another argument while the merger is unstable.
The message came from his account.
When Sebastian entered my room, I showed him.
“I never sent that.”
“You told me not to call because your meetings were confidential.”
“I called you every night.”
“My phone stopped receiving calls.”
His face tightened.
“Where is it?”
“Eleanor took it for a software update.”
Sebastian closed his eyes.
The hospital security officer entered holding a sealed evidence bag.
Inside was my phone.
Police had found it inside Eleanor’s private office.
May you like
The device had been placed in airplane mode.
More than forty missed calls from Sebastian waited beneath the lock screen.
