Chapter 5 - The Voice of Treason
The recording clicked off into a deafening silence.
The only sound in the vast room was the heavy, labored breathing of Richard Hawthorne.
The billionaire stood motionless, staring at the small brown teddy bear in his trembling hands. Every drop of blood had drained from his face, replaced by a gray, sickly pallor. The veins along his neck and temples pulsed violently against his skin.
He slowly raised his head to look at Victoria.
She was cowering against the velvet cushions of the sofa, her hands covering her mouth, her eyes darting frantically toward the heavy mahogany exit doors.
“Richard... Richard, you have to understand the context,” she whimpered, her voice cracking, completely devoid of its former arrogance. “I was under so much stress... the wedding planning, the media scrutiny... I lost my temper! It was just words, darling! I was just trying to scare them into behaving! I would never actually send them away!”
Richard did not raise his voice. When he spoke, it was in a tone that was terrifyingly quiet, colder than an arctic winter.
“The Rolex,” Richard said.
Victoria blinked, caught off guard. “What?”
“Where did you get the watch you claimed Emily stole from my safe?”
Victoria swallowed hard, her throat bobbing. “I... I told you! I found it in her locker! She must have used a spare key—”
“The vintage Patek Philippe,” Richard interrupted, taking three slow, deliberate steps toward her, “was not kept in the bedroom safe, Victoria. It was kept in the vault behind the painting in my private study. A vault that requires a twelve-digit biometric passcode.”
Victoria’s breath froze in her chest.
“A passcode,” Richard continued, leaning down until his face was inches from hers, “that only two living people possessed. Myself... and Sarah.”
Victoria’s eyes flared with panic.
“How did you open that safe, Victoria?” Richard asked, his voice a lethal whisper. “Did you guess a twelve-digit code? Or did you have help from someone inside my security infrastructure?”
Before Victoria could concoct another lie, the heavy double doors of the drawing room swung open with a resounding thud.
Julian Vance—Hawthorne Enterprises’ chief financial officer and Richard’s supposed best friend since their days at Stanford—walked into the room, flanked by two private investigators hired by Richard’s personal legal team an hour prior. Julian was already in handcuffs, his expensive Italian suit rumpled, his face flushed with sweat and terror.
“Richard, wait! Listen to me!” Julian pleaded, struggling against the investigators’ iron grip. “I didn't have anything to do with the kids! I swear to God, Richard, I had no idea she was laying hands on the boys!”
Richard slowly turned around, his gaze shifting to his CFO.
“Julian,” Richard said softly. “You gave her the override codes to the estate’s secondary servers, didn't you?”
“She seduced him, Richard!” Victoria screamed, instantly throwing her co-conspirator under the bus without a second’s hesitation. “He came on to me! He told me he could divert twenty-five million dollars from the Hawthorne offshore trusts before the merger finalized! He promised me we would split it and move to Monaco! He planned the whole thing! He told me to get rid of Emily because she was always in the house, always watching the books, always noticing the missing household ledgers!”
Julian’s jaw dropped in absolute shock. “You lying bitch! You came to my penthouse three months ago! You were the one who brought the forged trust transfer documents! You said Richard was too obsessed with his dead wife to notice twenty-five million missing!”
Emily stood near the fireplace, watching the two vipers turn on each other with clinical detachment.
She felt no satisfaction. She felt only a deep, nauseating sorrow for the three little boys sleeping upstairs, who had lived under the roof of this venomous conspiracy for months while their father flew across continents chasing higher stock valuations.
“Enough,” Richard commanded.
The single word silenced the room completely.
Richard turned to the lead investigator, a burly, gray-haired former federal agent named Frank Miller. “Frank. Is the evidence secured?”
“Everything, Mr. Hawthorne,” Frank replied, holding up a thick manila folder and an encrypted thumb drive. “We pulled the encrypted WhatsApp messages between Ms. Lane and Mr. Vance from the backup cloud server. We have the wire transfer logs attempting to siphon the children’s maternal inheritance funds. We also have high-definition footage from the hidden security cameras inside the hallway: Ms. Lane is clearly seen slipping the Patek Philippe into Miss Carter’s canvas bag at 11:14 AM, precisely twenty minutes before she called you into the room.”
Richard closed his eyes for five long seconds. When he opened them, the man who had built a forty-billion-dollar empire was gone, replaced by a father whose soul was burning in hell.
“Call the FBI,” Richard instructed Frank. “And call the Los Angeles District Attorney. I want every single charge filed. Attempted grand larceny, corporate espionage, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit kidnapping... and three counts of felony child abuse with malicious intent.”
Victoria’s face drained of every last speck of color. She lunged off the sofa, dropping to her knees, clawing at Richard’s dress slacks. “No! Richard, please! My father! Think of my father’s political career! If I get arrested, it will ruin everything! You can’t do this to me! We were going to be married in three weeks!”
Richard pulled his leg away as if her touch were sulfuric acid.
“You are not going to be married, Victoria,” Richard whispered, looking down at her with pure disgust. “You are going to prison. And I will spend every dollar of my fortune ensuring you serve every single second of the maximum sentence allowable by federal law.”
Victoria looked around wildly. Julian was already being dragged toward the estate entrance by security. The investigators were taking photos of the room. The iron trap was snapping shut.
Her eyes flicked across the room, landing on Emily.
A spark of desperate, psychotic madness ignited in Victoria’s eyes.
“You...” Victoria hissed, her voice vibrating with demonic hatred. “You ruined my life, you filthy little maid. If I’m going down, you’re not getting what’s mine!”
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Before the guards could react, Victoria scrambled to her feet and darted—not toward the front doors, but toward the grand staircase leading directly up to the children’s nursery.
***
