Chapter 1
I watched the first recording twice before I trusted myself to speak.
Isabella’s phone showed the same foundation suite three days earlier. No guests. No Khloe. Just Isabella standing beside the marble table while Victor moved a chair several inches to the left and adjusted the position of a champagne stand near the edge.
“You were rehearsing accidents until one finally worked...”
My voice sounded quieter than I felt.
Isabella’s face drained.
Victor lowered his eyes.
That mattered.
I tapped the next recording.
Isabella walked backward into the table deliberately, stopped, reset her position, then tried again. Victor’s voice came from behind the phone.
“Too obvious. She has to hit the corner naturally.”
Everything inside me went still.
Khloe was only a few feet away, one hand beneath her belly while Elaine crouched beside her. I could still see the shattered champagne glass on the carpet and the exact place where my wife had fallen.
Isabella looked at me.
“You don’t understand what that is.”
I paused the video.
“Then explain why you practiced throwing a pregnant woman into furniture.”
“It wasn’t about Khloe.”
Victor closed his eyes.
I saw it.
“Wrong answer.”
Isabella’s mouth tightened.
Elaine scrolled farther down.
Another recording opened.
Different room.
Different date.
Khloe appeared at the top of a short staircase inside my estate.
Isabella stood three steps behind her.
My breathing changed.
Then the video stopped.
I looked at Victor.
“The first fall.”
He said nothing.
“You already said it failed.”
Victor stared at the carpet.
I turned toward Isabella.
For years, she had been one of the few people who could look me directly in the eye without flinching.
Now she was afraid of a phone.
Not of me.
Of what survived on it.
May you like
That told me the recordings were not memories.
They were instructions.
