Chapter 3 - The Nursery Monitor
Gregory didn't miss a beat. The moment Toby’s voice echoed down the hall, my husband’s face shifted back into a warm, fatherly smile. He stepped over the broken glass as if nothing had happened, crouching down just as our son rounded the corner into the kitchen.
“Hey, buddy! Look out, Daddy dropped a glass, don't step there,” Gregory said, scooping Toby up into his arms with easy affection.
I stood frozen by the kitchen island, my stomach churning with a toxic mix of revulsion and terror. The man holding our son was a stranger—a man who had calculated how to destroy me legally if I dared to fight back.
“Mommy looks sad,” Toby observed, resting his small chin against Gregory’s shoulder as he looked at me with big, innocent brown eyes.
“Mommy is just tired, champ,” Gregory lied smoothly, kissing the top of Toby’s head. “Why don't you go pick out a bedtime story while Mommy and I finish cleaning up this mess?”
Toby nodded and scampered off toward the stairs.
As soon as the boy was out of earshot, Gregory turned back to me, his tone dropping back into that icy, transactional register. “Think about what I said, Clara. Don't do anything stupid. We’re adults. We can manage this arrangement rationally.”
He walked past me without another word, heading upstairs to tuck Toby into bed. I stood alone in the wreckage of the kitchen, staring at the glittering shards of glass on the floor, feeling the heavy, suffocating weight of his trap closing in around me.
An hour later, the house was finally silent. Gregory had retired to the master bedroom, closing the door behind him.
I sat at the kitchen island in the dark, the glow of my phone screen casting a pale light across my face. I needed help. I needed legal advice, and I needed it from someone who wouldn't be intimidated by Gregory’s corporate accounting connections and financial leverage.
I opened my contacts, my thumb hovering over the name of Marcus Vance, a sharp family law attorney and an old college friend of my brother’s whom I hadn't spoken to in years. But before I could hit call, a soft chime came from my tablet—the monitor app linked to Toby’s room.
Usually, the house was dead silent by 9:00 PM. But a rustling sound caught my attention.
I tapped the screen, opening the live video feed of Toby’s nursery.
The room was dark, illuminated only by a glowing star-projector on the ceiling. Toby was fast asleep in his toddler bed. But standing beside the bed, whispering softly into a phone, was Gregory.
He thought he was being quiet, but the high-sensitivity microphone on the camera picked up every word.
“...yeah, she found out,” Gregory murmured into his phone, his back turned toward the camera. “The kid blew it at the grocery store. No, don't panic, Chloe. She doesn't have proof of the accounts, just the necklace. I’ve already handled her... she knows what’ll happen if she tries to pull a stunt with custody. Just lay low for a few days until I tell you it's safe to come back over.”
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My breath caught in my throat. Accounts.
He didn't just have a mistress. He was hiding money. Massive amounts of money, secreted away in accounts I knew nothing about—accounts that belonged to our marital estate, money meant for Toby’s future, hidden through the very corporate accounting wizardry Gregory used every single day.
