Chapter 3 - The Library FootageRichard did not send Emily outside the gate.
He couldn’t.
Not after Noah vomited from crying. Not after Liam wrapped both arms around Emily’s waist and went completely silent. Not after Ethan sat on the floor beside her suitcase, breathing through the spacer again because the panic had tightened his chest.
Instead, Richard made a decision that should have been obvious hours earlier.
He ordered the truth opened.
“Marcus,” he said, “pull the library footage.”
Victoria had returned to the library by then, seated in Richard’s leather chair as though she were the wounded queen of a kingdom under attack. Her legs were crossed. Her eyes were dry. The gold Rolex lay on the desk between them, glittering under the lamp.
When Richard entered with Marcus, Emily, and the boys, Victoria rose.
“You brought them?” she asked, horrified.
Richard did not answer.
Emily kept the children near the doorway. “They shouldn’t be in here for this.”
“They need to know I’m listening,” Richard said.
Emily hated that he was right.
Marcus connected his tablet to the wall screen. The library camera system came up in clean, silent squares. Timestamped. Unforgiving.
Victoria’s expression flickered.
“Richard,” she said quietly, “before you humiliate me in front of staff and children, remember what this looks like.”
He looked at her.
“What does it look like?”
“It looks like you are choosing a maid’s word over your future wife.”
“No,” Richard said. “It looks like I am checking whether I threw an innocent woman out of my house.”
The first clip loaded.
Emily standing near the shelves with folded linens in her arms.
Victoria entering.
The boys peeking from the hallway.
Emily setting her bag on the chair because Victoria had asked her to move a stack of old photo albums.
Then Victoria removing something from her wrist.
Even without sound, the movement was clear.
The Rolex slipped into Emily’s open bag.
No one breathed.
The video continued.
Victoria touched her hair, walked to the doorway, and spoke to someone off camera.
Minutes later, Richard entered.
Victoria pointed.
Emily opened the bag.
The watch appeared.
Richard exploded.
Emily stood frozen, devastated.
Then the most painful part played.
Richard throwing the cash at Emily’s feet.
The boys watching from the hallway.
Liam covering his mouth.
Noah crying silently.
Ethan clutching the doorframe so hard his knuckles turned white.
Richard reached for the edge of the desk.
Emily looked away.
Not because she could not bear seeing herself humiliated.
Because she could not bear seeing the boys watch it happen.
The clip ended.
Victoria did not speak.
Richard turned toward her.
“Why?”
One word.
Victoria laughed softly, but it sounded wrong.
“You are asking me why? Fine. Because she forgot she was an employee. Because your sons run to her before they run to you. Because every time I tried to build a family here, there she was, hovering like some saint in a cheap uniform.”
Emily said nothing.
Victoria stepped closer.
“She made me look cruel because I expected boundaries.”
“You told my sons they killed their mother,” Richard said.
Victoria’s face hardened.
“I told them the truth you were too cowardly to explain. Clara died giving birth to them. That is reality.”
Richard’s voice dropped. “They are children.”
“They are heirs,” Victoria snapped. “And they are undisciplined, anxious, overattached little boys because everyone in this house worships their trauma.”
Noah whimpered.
Richard moved between Victoria and his sons.
“Enough.”
But Victoria had lost the mask now.
“You think she loves them?” she hissed. “She loves what they give her. Importance. Power. Access. She is a servant who learned that if she controlled your children, she controlled your house.”
Emily finally spoke.
“If I wanted power, I would have taken the money you threw at me.”
That silenced even Victoria.
Richard slowly turned toward Emily.
The cash still lay on the library floor, scattered beneath the chair.
Untouched.
Victoria looked at it too, and hatred flashed across her face.
Richard faced Marcus. “Call legal. Call Daniel Pierce. I want Victoria escorted to the guest wing until her belongings can be packed.”
Victoria froze.
“You wouldn’t dare.”
Richard’s eyes were colder than Emily had ever seen them.
“I would.”
Victoria stepped close enough that her perfume hit Emily like smoke.
“This is not over.”
Emily held her gaze.
“For the children, it is.”
Victoria smiled then.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
Just enough to make Emily’s stomach tighten.
“You poor thing,” Victoria whispered. “You still think this is about a watch.”
Before anyone could ask what she meant, Victoria lifted her phone and tapped the screen.
Somewhere deeper in the mansion, an alarm began to scream.
Marcus looked down at his tablet.
His face changed.
“Sir,” he said. “Someone just opened the west wing archive.”
Richard stiffened.
No one used the west wing archive.
Not since Clara died.
The triplets began crying again.
Liam whispered, “That’s where she keeps Mommy.”
Emily turned cold.
Richard looked at his son.
“What does that mean?”
Liam buried his face in Emily’s skirt.
May you like
Victoria’s smile disappeared.
And Richard Hawthorne realized the watch had only been the smallest lie in his house.
