Chapter 6
The ringing silence in the brightly lit foyer was broken only by Claudia’s shrill, panicked gasps as she clutched her rapidly swelling cheek on the hardwood floor. The fair, rosy skin of her face was now marred by a vivid, blazing red handprint. She looked up at Richard, her eyes wide with a mixture of absolute terror and profound shock. No one had ever dared to strike her in her entire life of privilege.
Mark stumbled backward, his hands flying to his mouth. He looked from his wife, sobbing on the floor, to his father, who stood like an immovable monument of wrath.
"Dad!" Mark shrieked, his voice breaking into a high-pitched, pathetic wail of irritated cowardice. "What did you just do? You hit my wife! You assaulted her in our own home! I'm calling the police!"
"Call them," Richard commanded, his voice cold and devoid of any fear. He shifted Lily’s weight slightly, rubbing her back to keep her warm. "Call the police, Mark. Let them walk through that door and see a three-year-old girl with blue lips, bare feet, and frostbite on her toes. Let them ask why you were drinking wine while she was dying in the snow."
Mark froze, his hand hovering over his trouser pocket where his smartphone rested. The reality of the situation crashed down upon him. If the police arrived, he and Claudia would be leaving in handcuffs for child abuse.
Claudia pushed herself up onto her elbows, her elegant dress stained with the red wine she had dropped. "You can't do this!" she sobbed, her crisp American accent slurring slightly from the impact. "We own this estate! You have no right to come in here and attack us!"
"You own nothing," Richard stated, taking a slow, deliberate step toward them. The polished leather of his dress shoes clicked menacingly against the floorboards. "You live in a house purchased by the Whitaker family trust. A trust that I built. A trust that I control entirely. You drive cars that I paid for. You wear clothes bought with my money."
"Mark earns his salary!" Claudia spat back, tears of humiliation ruining her flawless makeup.
"Mark is a glorified paper-pusher at a company I founded," Richard corrected ruthlessly, his icy authority dominating the massive room. "His title is a vanity project. I gave him this life because he is my son. And I can take it all away in a single phone call."
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Richard reached into his tailored trouser pocket with his free hand and pulled out his cell phone. The bright, natural light caught the silver casing of the device.
"I told you, Claudia," Richard said, staring down at her with absolute disgust. "You have no idea whose house you are in. But you are about to find out."
