Chapter 5 - The Woman in the PhotographArthur did not speak for nearly a minute.
Evelyn Shaw did.
“Mrs. Bellamy, I’m going to ask you this once. Can you prove that?”
Victoria looked at her. “Not alone.”
“Who can?”
“The nurse who helped move the babies.”
“Name.”
“Ruth Calder.”
Arthur’s head lifted.
He knew that name.
Not from the hospital.
From his foundation.
Ruth Calder had been the woman listed as Maya and Noah’s emergency foster guardian before her death three months ago.
Arthur walked to the desk and pulled up the intake files.
Maya Lane.
Noah Lane.
Former guardian: Ruth Calder.
Deceased.
Cause: fall at home.
Arthur’s stomach turned.
“How did Ruth get them?” he asked.
Victoria hugged herself tighter.
“Your mother paid her to hide them.”
Arthur stared at her.
Victoria nodded, tears slipping down her face now.
“She didn’t tell you because she was gathering proof first. She said if she came to you with only emotion, my father would crush her. She needed documents. She needed names. She needed the children safe.”
Arthur remembered his mother’s final weeks.
The strange calls.
The locked study.
The argument they had because she kept asking about Olivia.
Arthur had been grieving. Angry. Drunk on loss.
When his mother told him not to trust the Bellamys, he had shouted that she was seeing ghosts.
Three days later, she was dead.
He sat down slowly.
Evelyn softened her voice. “Arthur.”
He shook his head.
“I didn’t listen.”
Victoria flinched.
“No,” she said. “I didn’t speak.”
Arthur looked at her, and whatever fragile pity he had felt vanished under the weight of Maya’s red cheek.
“You had twelve years.”
“I know.”
“You married me.”
“I know.”
“You slept beside me while my children were being raised by strangers.”
Victoria covered her mouth.
“I sent money.”
Arthur stood so fast the chair struck the wall.
“Money?”
She recoiled.
“You think money replaced a father?”
“No.”
“You think money erased foster homes?”
“No.”
“You think money helped Maya when she learned not to cry?”
Victoria whispered, “No.”
Arthur stepped back because if he came closer, his anger would become something he could never take back.
Evelyn moved between them.
“Enough. We need facts. Emotions can wait.”
Arthur laughed once, cold and humorless.
“Can they?”
Evelyn held his stare. “If you want to keep those children alive, yes.”
That landed.
Arthur forced himself to breathe.
Evelyn turned to Victoria. “Where is the nurse’s evidence?”
“Ruth kept a box.”
“Where?”
Victoria hesitated.
Arthur’s voice sharpened. “Where?”
“At the old Calder house. But my father’s men will go there too.”
“Then we go first.”
Evelyn shook her head. “Too dangerous.”
Arthur looked toward the hallway.
“My children’s lives are in that box.”
Victoria whispered, “Arthur, you cannot go. He wants you angry. He wants you exposed.”
“What do you suggest?”
She looked down.
“Let me go.”
Arthur laughed.
“No.”
“My father won’t expect me to betray him twice.”
“You betrayed me for twelve years.”
Victoria accepted that without defending herself.
“Yes,” she said. “So let me betray the right man now.”
Before Arthur could answer, the nursery monitor on the security tablet flickered.
He looked down.
Maya and Noah were asleep in the yellow room, Mrs. Bell sitting in a chair near the door.
Then the image went black.
Arthur froze.
The guard shouted from the hall.
“Power cut on the west wing!”
Arthur ran.
By the time he reached the stairs, the emergency lights had turned red.
A child screamed.
Noah.
Arthur took the stairs three at a time.
At the top, a masked man stepped out of the nursery carrying Noah over his shoulder.
Maya was behind him, fighting like a wildcat, clawing at his arm.
Arthur saw the man raise his hand.
Everything inside him went silent.
He hit the man before the blow landed.
Noah fell into Maya’s arms. The masked man slammed into the wall. Arthur drove him down, his fist locked around the man’s collar.
Security flooded the hallway.
The man struggled once, then stopped.
Arthur ripped off the mask.
The face underneath was familiar.
Not a stranger.
Not an outsider.
It was Daniel Reeves.
Arthur’s personal driver.
The man who had taken Maya to school.
The man Noah had trusted enough to sit beside.
Victoria appeared at the top of the stairs and went white.
Daniel looked at her and smiled through blood.
“Your father said hello.”
Then he bit down hard.
Evelyn screamed, “Stop him!”
Too late.
Daniel convulsed once and collapsed.
Arthur stood over the body, breathing hard.
Maya held Noah and sobbed.
Victoria stared at the dead man on the floor.
“He’s not just cleaning loose ends anymore,” she whispered.
Arthur turned to her.
May you like
Victoria’s voice broke.
“He’s starting the war.”
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