Chapter 2
Thomas removed the camera without disconnecting its transmitter.
That mattered.
If someone was watching live, I wanted them to believe their little theater was still running.
Dad sent Nora and Ruby to one of the sedans with two guards and a physician who had traveled with him. Only after I watched my daughter disappear safely behind tinted glass did I turn back toward Logan.
“Start.”
He laughed nervously.
“It’s a security camera.”
“No.”
I pointed toward the existing estate cameras.
“Those are security cameras.”
The hidden lens was positioned differently. Too low. Too close. It captured expressions, not gates.
Savannah stepped backward.
“I didn’t know about it.”
Logan turned sharply.
“Don’t.”
There.
Again.
The first crack.
I looked at her.
“What did you know?”
Her fingers went to my emerald necklace.
“I knew he wanted you gone before his family arrived.”
“Whose family?”
She stopped.
Logan closed his eyes.
My father noticed.
“Not Mercer family,” he said.
Savannah’s face changed.
Dad had guessed correctly.
I stepped closer.
“Who was coming?”
She whispered, “Ashfords.”
My stomach tightened.
Not outsiders.
Mine.
Logan had planned this around my own family.
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“Why?”
Savannah looked toward the hidden camera.
“To see the footage.”
Silence.
My father’s face became unreadable.
I understood slowly.
Six weeks postpartum.
Newborn displaced.
Mistress pregnant.
Mother’s necklace on another woman.
My baby’s crib destroyed in front of me.
Every detail was selected to provoke the largest possible reaction.
And I had given them one.
I looked at the panel I had used to pin Logan.
He saw me understand.
“They were going to show only that part,” I said.
Nobody answered.
Of course.
Not the crib being torn apart.
Not Ruby’s clothes being boxed.
Not Logan throwing us out.
Not Savannah occupying the nursery.
Just Bianca Ashford attacking her husband with a piece of a crib.
A violent, unstable new mother.
Unfit.
My father looked at Logan.
“You weren’t trying to steal her house.”
He glanced toward me.
“You were trying to steal her credibility.”
Then Savannah whispered something worse.
May you like
“They said after tonight, Bianca wouldn’t be allowed near command.”
My father went completely still.
