Chapter 2
Emma did not answer until Bianca was removed from the breakfast room.
Not expelled from the estate yet.
Contained.
There was a difference.
I kept Marcus under guard in the adjoining study and sat with Lucy on my lap while Emma played the first video.
Bianca stood beside the breakfast table.
Lucy was seated normally.
A full plate in front of her.
Marcus appeared behind the camera.
Bianca took the plate away.
“You cried yesterday,” she said on the recording. “So today you eat where badly behaved things eat.”
Then she placed the dog bowl on the floor.
Lucy stared at it.
“I’m not a dog.”
Bianca smiled.
“Then stop whining like one.”
My hands tightened around the armrest.
Lucy shifted against me.
I stopped the video.
“Do you want me to turn it off?”
She thought.
Then shook her head.
“No.”
I kissed the top of her hair.
Emma looked surprised.
Maybe she expected me to decide for her.
Too many adults already had.
I pressed play.
Marcus shut the door.
Lucy tried to follow him.
He blocked her.
Then laughed when Bianca made the child kneel again.
I paused the video.
“Why did you record this?”
Emma looked ashamed.
“The first time, I didn’t.”
“What happened?”
“I tried to stop it.”
“And?”
“Miss Bianca said I was an employee and Lucy was not my concern.”
I looked at her.
“What did you do?”
“I told her she was wrong.”
Good.
“What happened after?”
“She took me off morning service for three days.”
There it was.
Punish intervention.
Reward silence.
Standard.
“When did you start recording?”
“The second time.”
“Why didn’t you bring it to me?”
Emma looked down.
“Marcus told me you already knew.”
My body went completely still.
Lucy looked up at me.
I felt it.
The same lie appeared again.
Adults using my name as a wall around a child.
I looked at Emma.
“You believed him?”
“For two days.”
“What changed?”
She looked at Lucy.
“Lucy asked me why her daddy wanted her to eat on the floor.”
I closed my eyes.
May you like
There are sentences that damage a man more effectively than bullets.
That was one.
