Chapter 1 - The Camera on the Wall
Damon Mercer came through Vivian Hale’s front door like he still believed volume could turn a demand into permission.
Two black suitcases rolled across the marble foyer behind him. Audrey entered a few steps back, her sapphire dress immaculate, her face already tight with dread.
Damon pointed toward the hallway.
“We’re staying here for a month.”
Vivian stepped directly between him and the stairs.
At sixty-eight, she was smaller than Damon by nearly a foot, but she didn’t move aside.
“Get out of my house right now.”
His fist hit her mouth before Audrey could speak.
Vivian crashed sideways against the marble console table. A crystal bowl rattled but didn’t fall.
“Damon!”
Audrey sounded horrified.
She still didn’t move toward her mother.
Vivian pressed a tissue against her split lip. When she lifted her eyes, they went briefly toward the small security camera above the foyer arch.
Damon followed her glance.
His expression changed.
He reached up, tore the camera from its mount, dropped it onto the marble, and crushed it beneath his shoe.
“There won’t be any evidence left.”
Vivian reached for her phone.
Audrey moved faster.
She pulled it from Vivian’s hand and stepped beside her husband.
“Don’t make things worse, Mom.”
That hurt more than the punch.
Vivian studied her daughter for a long second.
Then she pushed herself upright.
Blood stained the tissue against her mouth. Pieces of the camera lay between them.
Vivian smiled.
Not warmly.
Not nervously.
Calmly.
“You made a mistake from the very beginning.”
For the first time since entering the house, Damon looked uncertain.
His eyes moved toward the front door, the marble table, the ceiling, then the hallway.
“What mistake?”
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Vivian said nothing.
What Damon did not understand was that the camera he had destroyed was no longer the thing Vivian was worried about.
