Chapter 3 - The Fractured House
The words hung in the sterile, high-end kitchen like a cloud of poison gas.
Ask Julian whose idea it really was.
My phone slipped slightly in my sweaty palm, the voice recorder still blinking its silent red eye. My mind stalled, desperately trying to reject the logic of what Victoria was implying. Julian had looked pale. Julian had dropped to his knees. Julian had told Elena she didn't do anything wrong.
Or had he been acting?
“You’re lying,” I choked out, taking a step back as if physical distance could shield me from the ugliness of the room. “Julian loves his daughter. He was horrified when he saw her.”
“Julian is a weak coward who does whatever keeps his inheritance safe and his father’s ghost off his back,” Victoria spat, pouring herself another sip of coffee with unnerving calm. “He knows how this family operates. We don't breed fat, lazy weaklings. If you call the cops, Chloe, you won't just destroy me. You’ll destroy Julian, too. Because he helped cover up the first time she came home marked up six months ago.”
The floor seemed to drop out from beneath my feet.
Six months ago. Elena had come home with a mysterious bruise on her arm, claiming she had fallen off the jungle gym at the park. Julian had been overly defensive, rushing to confirm her story before I could even ask follow-up questions.
I had bought it. I had trusted my husband.
I turned around blindly, leaving Victoria standing in her sunlit kitchen with her smug, untouchable smile. I didn't say another word. I got back into my car, the phone recording still saved and backed up instantly to my cloud storage, and drove home with my vision blurred by hot, angry tears.
When I walked through our front door, the house was dead quiet.
Elena was upstairs in her bedroom, resting under the care of a pediatric nurse practitioner friend of mine whom I had called from the car.
Julian was pacing the length of our living room, wringing his hands. When he saw my face—drained of color, hard as stone—he stopped dead in his tracks.
“Chloe,” he breathed, stepping toward me. “Where have you been? Did you talk to her? Look, we need to handle this carefully—”
“I recorded her,” I interrupted, my voice flat, devoid of all warmth.
Julian blinked, freezing mid-step. “You... what?”
“I recorded every word she said. She admitted to the trash bag. She admitted to the belt. And then she told me something else, Julian.” I walked slowly toward him, closing the distance until I could see the frantic, guilty panic swimming in his eyes. “She told me that you already knew. She told me this wasn't the first time.”
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Julian’s face drained of every remaining drop of color. He staggered backward, his hip hitting the edge of our mahogany coffee table. He didn't deny it. He didn't yell. He just let his head drop into his hands, letting out a ragged, defeated sob.
“Oh god,” he whispered through his fingers. “Oh god, Chloe, I’m so sorry.”
