Chapter 4 - The Archives of Cruelty
Mrs. Collins swiped her thumb across the glass screen with deliberate, methodical calm.
She tapped an album labeled with dates spanning the previous year and connected the device to the estate's high-powered outdoor multimedia system with a single touch.
The massive outdoor projector screen, which had been set up beside the pool house to display promotional videos of Victoria’s charity foundation, suddenly flickered to life.
A high-definition image expanded across the twenty-foot display, broadcasting directly over the heads of the two hundred horrified guests.
The first video was dated November fourteenth of the previous year, during the week of my father's annual trade summit in Singapore.
The setting was instantly recognizable: the mansion's private upper library, an ornate room lined with mahogany bookshelves where my mother used to read to us as children.
On the screen, I was seated at the study desk, quietly working on my college midterm papers with a desk lamp illuminating my textbooks.
Suddenly, the heavy double doors of the library burst open, and Victoria marched into the frame like a storm cloud.
Her face was twisted with fury because a specific brand of organic tea had not been delivered to her private sitting room on time.
The audio picked up her piercing, venomous shrieks:
“You useless little parasite! You sit here pretending to study while the staff neglects my orders!”
In the video, I stood up from the desk, raising my hands in a defensive gesture to de-escalate her rage.
“Victoria, I’m studying for my exams, and the grocery order was delayed by the supplier—it has nothing to do with me—”
Before the recorded version of me could finish the sentence, Victoria crossed the room in three strides.
Her manicured hands clamped violently around my upper arms, digging in with such vicious force that the microphone captured my sharp gasp of pain.
The screen showed her violently shaking me back and forth like a rag doll before shoving me backward with all her strength.
My body struck the edge of the heavy mahogany desk, knocking over a bronze lamp and sending stacks of heavy textbooks crashing to the floor.
On the video, I slid down against the wood, clutching my bruised ribs and weeping silently while Victoria leaned over me, spitting curses before storming out of the room.
Ryan stood before the massive projector screen, his entire body rigid as stone.
A deep, agonizing groan tore from the depths of his throat, the sound of a brother realizing that the home he thought was safe had been an active torture chamber for his sister.
“My God...” Ryan whispered, his knuckles turning stark white as his fists trembled with uncontrolled fury.
Mrs. Collins did not stop there; she swiped her finger again, advancing to a clip from late February.
This time, the camera was situated near the grand sweeping staircase of the mansion's marble foyer.
It was past midnight.
The recording showed me standing at the bottom of the stairs in my pajamas, holding a glass of water, shivering as Victoria blocked my path back up to my bedroom.
She was cornering me against the wrought-iron banister, leaning in until her nose was an inch from mine, her finger repeatedly jabbing painfully into my collarbone.
“If you ever say a word to Ryan when he calls, I will tell your father that you've been stealing his prescription medication,” Victoria’s recorded voice hissed with chilling clarity.
“He will believe me, Lily. He always believes me.”
“I will have you committed to an institution so fast your head will spin, and you will never see a single penny of your mother’s inheritance.”
“Do you understand me, you pathetic little orphan?”
On the screen, my younger self could only nod through blinding tears, clutching the banister to keep from collapsing under the sheer weight of the psychological terror.
Another swipe of the screen revealed a third video from April.
This one captured the kitchen area, where Victoria was seen deliberately sweeping a tray of freshly baked porcelain ramekins off the counter onto the tile floor.
She then shoved a broom into my hands, grabbed my wrist in a crushing grip, and twisted it until I cried out, forcing me down to clean the sharp shards with my bare hands.
The two hundred guests watching the giant display were no longer merely uncomfortable; an audible wave of disgust and fury was rippling through the crowd.
Prominent socialites who had sat on charity boards with Victoria looked at her as if she were a venomous viper that had secretly nested among them.
“Disgraceful,” a prominent female judge whispered from the front row, glaring at Victoria with utter contempt.
“She belongs in a prison cell,” an investment banker agreed aloud, shaking his head in disgust.
Victoria looked between the giant screen, the hostile faces of the crowd, and the terrifying, immovable form of her stepson.
Her mind seemed to snap under the weight of the undeniable exposure.
With a shriek that sounded more animal than human, she charged directly toward Mrs. Collins, her claw-like hands reaching for the smartphone.
“GIVE ME THAT PHONE! I WILL DESTROY YOU, YOU TRAITOROUS BITCH!”
She never reached the housekeeper.
Ryan moved with blinding speed, intercepting Victoria’s path and grabbing her by both shoulders with an iron grip that instantly halted her forward momentum.
He spun her around and shoved her back toward the center of the terrace, his voice dropping into a register of sheer, lethal authority.
“Don't even think about taking another step toward her!” Ryan roared.
Victoria stumbled, barely catching her balance against the edge of a marble pedestal, her breathing ragged, her eyes wild with terror.
She looked at Ryan, then at me, then at the two hundred pairs of eyes condemning her without a single word of mercy.
Ryan slowly turned away from the monster and knelt back down before me on the mud-slicked stones.
He reached out with trembling hands and pulled me into his arms, wrapping his charcoal jacket tighter around my shivering body.
“Why didn't you tell me, Lily?” he asked, his voice breaking into raw, ragged sobs against my hair.
“Why didn't you call me? Why didn't you let me protect you?”
I pressed my face into the crook of his neck, the lingering grit of the swamp water transferring onto his clean collar.
“Because I was so afraid, Ryan,” I wept, pouring out the four years of accumulated poison that had lived in my chest.
“I thought if you fought her, Dad would turn against you... I thought it would destroy the entire family... I thought it was my fault for being weak...”
Ryan pulled back slightly, gripping both sides of my face with gentle, firm hands, forcing me to look directly into his tear-streaked sapphire eyes.
“Listen to me, Lily Anderson,” he said, his voice fierce with absolute conviction.
“You are my family. You are the only family that matters to me in this world.”
“You did nothing wrong. You endured a monster alone because you have a heart too pure for this corrupt house.”
“And I swear on our mother's soul that you will never, ever have to be afraid again.”
The sheer weight of his promise washed over my battered spirit like a wave of clean, healing light, washing away years of invisible chains.
Across the terrace, Victoria leaned heavily against the marble pedestal, panting for breath, her crimson dress ruined, her social standing pulverized beyond salvation.
She looked around desperately, searching for an exit, searching for an ally, searching for any thread of control she could possibly grasp.
She found none.
Every bridge she had built with money and manipulation had just been incinerated by the archives of her own cruelty.
Yet standing near the stone balustrade, Mrs. Collins still held the smartphone high.
The housekeeper did not look satisfied; her expression remained grim, shadowed by an even deeper, heavier burden that had not yet been revealed.
She looked directly at Ryan, her voice cutting through the quiet murmurs of the weeping crowd with chilling solemnity.
“There is one more recording, Mr. Ryan.”
The air in the garden instantly turned to ice.
Ryan straightened up slowly, his protective arm remaining firmly anchored around my shoulders.
He frowned, his sharp blue eyes locking onto the housekeeper’s pale face.
“What do you mean, Eleanor? What else could she have done?”
Victoria’s head snapped toward Mrs. Collins like a whip, her jaw dropping open as the final remnants of her arrogant facade shattered into absolute, paralyzing panic.
“No,” Victoria whimpered, her voice dropping to a terrified, desperate squeak.
“Eleanor... please... not that... you promised...”
Mrs. Collins lowered her gaze toward the glowing screen, her fingers steady, her eyes completely devoid of pity.
“The abuse of Miss Lily was the cruelty of a wicked woman, Mr. Ryan,” the housekeeper said slowly, each word landing like a lead weight.
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“But this final recording is not about her temper.”
“This recording is about a crime that goes far deeper into the heart of this family than any of us ever imagined.”
