“What did you just say to me?” Sabina snapped, reaching out aggressively to grab Gemma’s slender wrist.
“Do not touch her!” Rosamund’s voice lost every trace of its usual submissive tone.
In a fraction of a second, without striking or shoving, Rosamund stepped directly into Sabina’s path, placing her forearm firmly between Sabina’s hand and the young child.
Sabina gasped in complete shock, stepping back as her face turned bright red with fury.
“You actually put your hands on me. You laid hands on me in my own home.”
“I am simply protecting Mr. Prescott’s children, exactly as he expects me to do,” Rosamund stated, her voice lowering into a firm tone that sounded as solid as stone.
A dark, calculating smile slowly spread across Sabina’s face as she pulled a sleek smartphone out of her designer handbag.
“You just completely ruined your life, Rosamund,” she said softly. “I am calling the police right now. I am going to tell the authorities that you physically assaulted me inside this house. Then I will tell Chadworth that I caught you going through his private wall safe in the study, and when I tried to stop you, you attacked me and threatened the girls.”
In the surveillance control room, Chadworth clenched his hands into tight fists until his knuckles turned completely white.
The sound of his own rushing blood filled his ears as every single lie Sabina had whispered over the past several months replayed in his head, completely stripped of their deceptive charm.
All those missing items, all those subtle warnings about Rosamund manipulating his daughters, and all those complaints about the staff being disrespectful were nothing more than calculated lies designed to isolate his children and consolidate her own power over his estate.
“Keep the surveillance recorders running, Barnaby,” Chadworth instructed in a tone that was terrifyingly calm.
It was the exact same cold, ruthless tone he used when destroying corporate rivals who tried to cross him in business.
“Make sure every single frame of video and every second of audio is saved directly to three independent external servers. Do not cut the feed under any circumstances.”
“Where are you going, sir?” Barnaby asked, immediately standing up from his desk.
“I am going upstairs to clean out my house,” Chadworth answered plainly.
In the primary living room, Sabina was pacing back and forth across the rug while holding her phone to her ear, pretending to wait for a police operator while staring down Rosamund with pure hatred.
