Chapter 5 - THE SABOTAGE
"I didn't mean to kill her!" Evelina screamed, her voice echoing frantically through the empty, cavernous room. "I swear to God, Benedict, I didn't want her to die!"
The admission hung in the air like a heavy executioner’s axe.
Benedict didn't move. His jaw tightened so hard a muscle twitched violently along his cheek. "You cut her brakes."
"She was going to expose my family!" Evelina wept, clawing at Benedict’s pant leg like a madwoman. "Four years ago, Victoria found out my father was embezzling from the Sterling Charitable Trust! She threatened to report us to the federal prosecutors! We would have lost everything—our house, our social standing, our freedom! My father begged me to stop her!"
"So you tampered with her vehicle on the night she was driving to the hospital," Benedict said, every word dripping with cold rage.
"I only wanted to cause a minor crash so she would miss the board meeting!" Evelina sobbed hysterically. "I didn't know it was going to rain! I didn't know she was going to drive near the mountain pass! It was an accident, Benedict! You have to believe me!"
"And then you stepped into her shoes," Benedict said, disgust filling his entire being as he looked down at her. "You comforted me at her funeral. You wormed your way into my life. You got engaged to me. And when you saw Orla growing up, looking more like you every day, you grew terrified that someone would run a routine genetic test."
"I hated her!" Evelina shrieked, her mask completely slipping into pure psychological ruin. "Every time I looked at that little girl, I saw Victoria’s ghost! I saw my own ruined youth! I didn't know she was my biological daughter until ten seconds ago, Benedict! I thought she was just Victoria’s bastard child from some affair! I wanted her gone! I wanted her disgraced and sent away to a boarding school so I wouldn't have to look at her face ever again!"
"You tried to auction off your own biological child into servitude," Benedict said quietly. "You humiliated a three-year-old girl in front of two hundred people, calling her a thief and a delinquent, just to save your own skin."
Suddenly, the side door of the ballroom clicked open.
Marcus, the head of security, stepped back into the room. His face was grim, and in his hand, he held a sleek digital tablet connected to the estate's high-security mainframe.
"Mr. Sterling," Marcus said in a disciplined, heavy tone. "We just finished running the deep forensic recovery on the East Wing corridor cameras from earlier this evening, as you requested."
Benedict turned away from Evelina. "What did you find, Marcus?"
Marcus tapped the tablet screen and turned it toward Benedict. "The camera above the gallery display was physically disabled at 7:15 PM. However, the auxiliary thermal security camera in the ceiling duct remained active."
Marcus pressed play.
On the screen, a clear thermal video showed Evelina Vance entering the East Wing gallery alone, carrying a small steel hammer inside her silk clutch. She walked up to the Qing Dynasty vase, raised the hammer, and struck the base repeatedly until the thick ceramic cracked open.
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She then pulled the sealed envelope out of the hollow base. But before she could hide it, footsteps echoed down the hallway. Panicking, Evelina shoved the envelope back into the shattered base, placed the broken vase onto the silver tray, and hid the hammer under a sofa cushion.
Ten seconds later, little Orla wandered into the hallway holding her teddy bear. Evelina immediately grabbed the tray, walked out into the corridor, and began screaming that the child had knocked over the masterpiece.
