Chapter 4: The Footage That Changed Everything
Marcus returned in eleven minutes.
Lily knew because she counted.
She sat on a chair someone had quietly brought to her — she didn't see who — with Ethan still in her arms, a blanket now tucked around him, his small weight warm and steady against her chest.
A doctor had been called.
She could hear Victor on the phone in the next room, his voice low and clipped, the kind of voice that expected immediate results.
Serena had not moved from the far end of the foyer.
She stood with her arms still folded, her expression carefully arranged into something that looked like patience.
But her eyes tracked every movement.
Every door.
Every person who passed through the hall.
Marcus set a laptop on the entry table without a word and stepped back.
Victor came back into the room.
He pressed play.
The footage was clear.
High resolution.
Timestamp in the corner.
Lily watched herself on the screen, carrying Ethan toward the kitchen.
Watched Serena appear at the top of the staircase.
Watched her descend slowly, cross the foyer, and crouch down to where Ethan had been placed on his play mat.
There was no sound.
But there didn't need to be.
The footage showed everything.
Ethan reaching up.
Serena pulling back.
Ethan beginning to fuss.
Serena's hand closing around his arm — not gently, not to comfort, but to grip.
And then the drag.
Three feet across the marble.
His little body twisting.
His mouth open in a cry the camera couldn't carry but that Lily could still hear in her bones.
Then Lily running back in.
Throwing herself forward.
Serena's heel coming up.
Victor stopped the footage.
The room was so quiet Lily could hear the clock on the far wall.
"That's not what it looks like," Serena said.
Victor turned to face her.
"Then tell me what it looks like."
"He was having a tantrum.
He threw himself down.
I was trying to move him somewhere safe and the nanny overreacted and—"
"You dragged my son across a marble floor by his arm," Victor said.
"While he was crying.
And when his nanny tried to stop you, you kjcked her."
"I was startled.
It was a reflex—"
"It was on camera, Serena." His voice didn't rise.
It dropped.
"All of it."
Serena's composure cracked — just slightly, just at the edges — and something uglier showed through underneath.
"You think this changes anything?" she said.
"You think you can just end this?
Do you have any idea what my father will do if you humiliate our family?
The Montigues have connections in this city that even you depend on, Victor.
You end this engagement and I will make sure every deal you have with my father's network collapses by the end of the month.
You think a nanny and a baby are worth that?"
Victor looked at her for a long moment.
"Yes," he said.
Serena blinked.
"Get out of my house," he said.
"Tonight.
Take what you came with.
Leave everything else."
"You're making a mistake—"
"Marcus will help you with the door."
Serena looked at Marcus.
Then at Lily.
Her gaze landed on Lily the way a heel lands on marble — sharp, deliberate, meant to leave a mark.
"You think you've won something," Serena said quietly.
"You have no idea what you've just started."
Lily held Ethan tighter and said nothing.
Serena picked up her bag from the console table by the door.
She straightened her jacket.
She walked out without looking back.
The door closed behind her.
Ethan stirred in Lily's arms, made a small sound, and settled again.
Victor stood at the center of the foyer for a moment.
Then he turned to Lily.
"The doctor will be here in ten minutes," he said.
"Ethan first.
Then I want someone to look at your ribs."
"I'm fine," Lily said automatically.
"I didn't ask," he said.
Not unkindly.
He looked at his son's face — the dried tear tracks, the lashes still damp, the small mouth slightly open in sleep.
"You stayed," he said.
It wasn't a question.
"Of course I stayed," Lily said.
Something moved across his face that she didn't have a name for yet.
Then his phone rang.
He glanced at the screen, and whatever had been there a moment ago was gone, replaced by the controlled blankness she recognized as his working face.
He stepped away to answer it.
May you like
And Lily sat in the quiet of the foyer, Ethan breathing softly against her, and tried not to think about what Serena had said on her way out the door.
*You have no idea what you've just started.*
