Chapter 2 - What the Cameras Remembered
The first clip was from that morning.
At 9:12 a.m., Daphne entered the foyer carrying a laundry basket. She moved slowly, one hand on her back, her stomach round beneath the soft maternity fabric. Rosalind stepped into frame with a dessert glass in her hand and said something the audio picked up clearly.
“You eat like a guest and move like luggage. If Andrew saw what you cost him, he’d thank me for correcting you.”
Daphne lowered her eyes.
I felt sick.
I had spent months believing my mother’s little comments were “adjustment pains.” That was the phrase I used. Adjustment pains. As if cruelty were a temporary weather system that patience could outlast.
The footage kept going.
Rosalind ordered Daphne to bring hot water. Then ginger. Then towels. Then to kneel because, according to my mother, “a woman who lives off a man’s labor should learn humility before she gives birth to another mouth.”
Daphne obeyed.
Not because she was weak.
Because she was trapped inside my blind spot.
I fast-forwarded through the archive with shaking fingers. Days appeared. Then weeks. My mother taking Daphne’s breakfast plate. My mother making her stand during dinner while guests were still eating. My mother sending staff away before cornering her. My mother opening Daphne’s mail. My mother taking a prenatal vitamin bottle from the counter and hiding it in a drawer.
Daphne made a small sound beside me.
I stopped the video.
Not because I did not want the truth.
Because I realized my wife was watching her own suffering become evidence while still standing in the room where it happened.
I turned to the staffer in the hallway. Her name was Maria. She had worked with us for three years. She looked at the floor like she wished it would open.
“You saw this?”
Maria’s eyes filled.
“Mrs. Rosalind said she would fire anyone who interfered.”
“And you believed her?”
“She said Mr. Mason would be in charge soon.”
My mother’s head snapped toward her.
“Be quiet.”
Mason.
My older brother.
The son my mother never stopped trying to promote into rooms he had not earned. Mason was handsome, charming, expensive, and allergic to responsibility. He had borrowed from me, resented me, and called my company “our family business” even though he had never worked one full month in it.
I looked back at the footage.
Another clip.
Rosalind entering my study.
Not the foyer.
My study.
She moved directly to the wall panel behind my bookcase.
My safe.
I felt the blood leave my face.
Daphne looked up, confused.
“Andrew?”
I did not answer.
The footage showed my mother entering a code.
My code.
The safe opened.
She removed something wrapped in a black cloth.
Then another item.
Then a folder with the company seal.
My mother’s expression changed as she watched the screen.
For the first time, she looked afraid.
I stared at her.
“How did you get my safe code?”
Rosalind lifted her chin.
“This company exists because of this family.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“It exists because I raised you.”
“No,” I said quietly. “It exists because Daphne and I built it while Mason was still asking me to cover his rent.”
Her face twisted.
“Don’t speak about your brother that way.”
Daphne’s hand tightened around my arm.
In the footage, Rosalind closed the safe and left the study with the folder tucked beneath her robe.
I ended the playback and walked upstairs.
My legs felt unreal beneath me.
The study door was still locked.
The safe was still hidden.
But when I opened it, the inside was empty.
Five gold bars were gone.
$500,000 in emergency cash had vanished.
And the original incorporation documents for Whitaker Medical Supply were missing.
Behind me, Rosalind’s voice came from the doorway, sharp as glass.
“Your brother already knows what belongs to us.”
My phone rang before I could respond.
Mason.
I answered without speaking.
May you like
His laugh came through the line, lazy and smug.
“Brother,” he said, “tomorrow we’ll talk about my new position as CEO.”
