Chapter 5
The second crib had been delivered by an Ashford driver.
Not Logan.
Not Savannah.
That detail mattered because it proved the conspiracy had already entered my father’s household structure.
Thomas traced the delivery to Raymond Cole, one of Dad’s senior transportation men.
Twenty-six years of service.
Trusted enough to transport family children.
Dad listened without moving.
Then removed his ring and placed it on the gatehouse table.
He did that when anger became dangerous.
“Bring Raymond.”
Raymond arrived before midnight.
He saw the nursery footage and looked sick.
“Boss, I didn’t know they were destroying Ruby’s crib.”
Dad stared.
“But you delivered the replacement.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Raymond looked at me.
“Victor said Mrs. Mercer—”
I cut him off.
“Bianca.”
He corrected himself.
“Bianca was leaving the estate temporarily.”
“Did I tell you that?”
“No.”
“Did my father?”
“No.”
“Then why did you believe Victor?”
Silence.
Dad answered for him.
“Because age felt like authority.”
Raymond looked down.
Exactly.
Victor had spent decades becoming the man older staff obeyed without checking whether he still had the right to give orders.
“What was the crib for?” I asked.
Raymond swallowed.
“A family dinner tonight.”
I stared.
“The crib?”
“He said Savannah’s baby would be presented.”
Savannah went pale.
“To who?”
“Senior Ashford captains.”
She looked at Logan.
He avoided her eyes.
There it was.
Savannah had thought the second crib meant a nursery.
Victor intended it as theater.
Another child.
Another mother.
A visual contrast.
Bianca and Ruby expelled.
Calm pregnant Savannah welcomed.
Logan standing beside her.
Then edited footage showing me attacking him.
Not succession by blood.
Succession by optics.
Victor could not make Savannah’s child an Ashford heir.
But he could use that child to make me look emotionally disposable.
I looked at her stomach.
For the first time, Savannah covered it protectively.
Good.
She finally understood.
May you like
Her baby had never been the beneficiary.
Her baby was another prop.
