Chapter 4 - Unmasking the Monster
By 3:00 AM, the girls had fallen into a deep, exhausted sleep on the floor of the den, wrapped in thick, heated blankets that Dr. Vance had brought from his clinic. Nathan sat in an armchair beside them, watching their chests rise and fall. He hadn't slept a wink.
Arthur Pendelton arrived, accompanied by two private investigators Nathan had hired years ago for corporate security.
"Nathan," Arthur said quietly, stepping into the hallway so as not to wake the children. "We have a problem. We went through the security feeds and the household accounts. It’s worse than we thought."
Nathan rubbed his eyes. "Tell me."
One of the investigators, a stern woman named Marcus, opened a laptop. "Vanessa fired the nannies, the therapist, the chef, and the tutors three months ago. She kept their names on the payroll, though. She was routing their salaries—over eighty thousand dollars a month—into a private offshore account in the Caymans."
Nathan’s jaw tightened. "And the girls? How did she keep it a secret?"
"She threat-blocked them," Marcus explained, showing a video clip from a hidden camera in the hallway. "Look here. This was two weeks ago."
Nathan watched the screen. On the footage, Vanessa was standing over the four little girls. She was holding a large, heavy leather paddle. Her face was twisted in a snarl.
“If you tell your father anything,” Vanessa’s voice hissed from the speakers, “I will send you to an orphanage where they lock bad girls in dark closets forever. Your father doesn’t want you. That’s why he’s never here. I am the only one who keeps you. You tell him, and you will never see him again.”
Nathan had to grip the edge of the desk to keep from throwing the laptop against the wall. The sheer, calculated cruelty of it made him physically sick. She had used his absence as a weapon to terrify his children into silence.
"We also found her personal diary and search history on the house iPad," Marcus continued. "She was deliberately trying to make them lose weight. She called them 'fat, useless burdens' in her entries. She was obsessed with the idea that they were ruining her aesthetic."
"Where is she now?" Nathan asked, his voice deadly quiet.
"Security escorted her to a motel on the edge of town," Arthur said. "She tried to take three diamond necklaces, but we recovered them. She is currently crying to her lawyer, claiming 'spousal abuse' because you threw her out."
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"Let her cry," Nathan said, his eyes turning to the sleeping girls. "Arthur, I want criminal charges. Child endangerment, abuse, fraud, embezzlement. I don't want a settlement. I want her in a prison cell."
"We have more than enough evidence for a grand jury, Nathan," Arthur assured him. "She won't see a dime of your money. And she will never, ever get near those children again."
