Chapter 7 - Move Your Foot
Nathan saw everything in fragments.
Olivia on the marble.
Crystal pieces around her.
Scarlett’s heel beside the curve of Olivia’s belly.
The locked look of terror on his wife’s face.
Eleanor’s hand rose to her mouth behind him.
Scarlett pulled back slightly, but not fast enough.
Nathan’s voice cut through the foyer.
“Move your foot.”
Scarlett tried to smile. “Nathan, thank God. She fell.”
Olivia’s eyes opened.
She looked at him like she had been holding her breath for years.
“Please,” she whispered. “Don’t let her come closer.”
Nathan moved toward Olivia.
Scarlett stepped in front of him.
“You don’t understand what she’s doing,” Scarlett said quickly. “She came here threatening me. She’s trying to turn you against us.”
Nathan looked at the locked front door behind him, then at the broken crystal, then at Olivia’s phone beneath the console table, still glowing.
“Move,” he said.
Scarlett’s face hardened. “This is my house.”
“No,” Eleanor said from the doorway.
Everyone turned.
Eleanor’s voice shook, but she did not look away.
“It was Charles’s house. And he left it in trust.”
Scarlett stared at her mother. “Don’t.”
Eleanor stepped inside slowly.
For once, she looked less like a matriarch and more like a woman who had spent too many years pretending not to see the monster she raised.
“I knew about the accounts,” Eleanor said.
Olivia’s face crumpled.
Nathan turned slightly. “You knew?”
Eleanor nodded, tears gathering but not falling. “Charles found out before he died. I helped Scarlett hide the first transfer because I thought it was a mistake.”
Scarlett hissed, “Mother.”
“But it wasn’t a mistake,” Eleanor continued. “And tonight I came to tell the attorneys everything.”
Scarlett’s panic finally showed.
She reached for Olivia’s phone.
Nathan moved faster.
He picked it up first.
The screen was cracked.
But the recording was still running.
Nathan looked at Scarlett, his voice colder than Olivia had ever heard it.
“You locked my pregnant wife in here.”
Scarlett’s mouth opened.
May you like
No answer came.
And that silence was the beginning of her end.
