CHAPTER 4
By ten o'clock that evening, the heavy silence inside the Greenwich mansion was broken only by the ticking of the grandfather clock in the vaulted foyer.
Upstairs in the nursery, Evelyn gently tucked Lily into her warm canopy bed, softly humming a familiar lullaby until the exhausted child fell into a peaceful sleep.
Downstairs in the private home office, Mark sat behind his massive mahogany desk, staring blankly at a leather-bound folder containing his prenuptial agreement.
The mahogany doors swung open, and Victoria strode into the dimly lit room, wearing a silk robe, her face restored to an expression of calm, manipulative confidence.
"Mark, darling, we need to talk about this rationally," Victoria began, gliding across the Persian rug toward his desk. "You're reacting emotionally to a minor misunderstanding."
Mark slowly raised his head, his dark eyes hollow, exhausted, and devoid of the affection he had once held for the woman sitting across from him.
"A minor misunderstanding?" Mark repeated, his voice dangerously quiet. "You pushed a sixty-year-old woman to the floor and blasted my traumatized six-year-old child with freezing water."
"She refused to call me mom!" Victoria blurted out, her composure slipping once again. "I have given up my social life in Manhattan to live in this house, Mark! I deserve respect!"
"Respect is earned, Victoria," Mark replied cold as ice. "And cruelty is unforgivable."
He opened his desk drawer, pulled out a sleek silver thumb drive, and slid it across the polished wooden surface toward her.
"What is this?" Victoria asked, her brow furrowing in genuine confusion as she looked down at the metal drive.
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"That is the live backup feed from the hidden security camera I installed in the master bathroom last week," Mark revealed with chilling calm.
Victoria’s breath hitched in her throat, the color draining completely from her face as her hands began to tremble uncontrollably against her silk robe.
