I hid Maya in the pantry and told her not to move.
Then I went outside, climbed the trellis to the attic window, and found Leo in a dark room with duct tape over his mouth and a photographer pointing a camera at him.
I took the man down before he made a sound, ripped the tape off my son’s face, and carried him out.
Now I knew what Lydia was doing. She wasn’t just abusing them. She was documenting damage and staging fear. She wanted the trust Sarah left behind. She wanted the children. She wanted the house. And she wanted me buried under the label of unstable father.
I got both kids into the pantry and went back through the service hall to the living room.
By then Lydia had changed costumes.
She was on the couch, crying neatly, waiting for the social worker. Scotch was spilled on the floor to make it look like I’d been drinking. Her hair was mussed just enough to suggest fear without ruining her face.
When the social worker arrived, Lydia pointed at me and said, “He’s not safe. He hides them downstairs. I’ve been protecting them for months.”
If I had shouted, she would have won.
If I had lunged, she would have won faster.
Instead I took out my phone and synced it to the living room screen.
Six months ago, after seeing strange charges in the household accounts, I had installed a second private security system. Not the one Lydia knew about. A separate encrypted feed tied to my own server.
I had forgotten it was there.
Now it saved us.
The first clip showed Lydia dumping Leo’s dinner onto the kitchen floor and telling him to eat there if he was going to act like a dog.
The second showed her pinching Maya hard enough to bruise while coaching her to say I had hit her.
The third showed her on the phone with someone from my biggest competitor, promising that once she had the trust and the children, I would be too busy defending myself to stop a takeover.
The social worker went white.
Lydia screamed and ran for the television.
I stepped in front of her.
Then the police came.
She fought them. She cursed. She called me a bad father. She called the children liars. She called herself their real mother.
The cops took her out in handcuffs while Maya and Leo watched from the kitchen doorway.
They didn’t run to me.
They just stared.
That was worse than anything Lydia had said.
Part 3: Fallout
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