Chapter 8 - The Digital Smoking Gun
In two long strides, Sebastian crossed the nursery, snatched the digital smart-home tablet off the desk, and plugged his master administrative key into the side port.
"Sebastian, don't listen to her, it's a trap!" Vanessa shrieked, her composed facade completely crumbling into panic as she lunged toward him.
"Stay back, Vanessa," Sebastian commanded, his voice dropping into a dark, dangerous growl that silenced the entire room.
His fingers flew across the glass screen, bypassing user encryption until he reached the archived audio logs from six months ago—the night of Caroline’s fatal crash on the Pacific Coast Highway—and the video logs from the nursery earlier that week.
He hit play on the audio file from six months ago.
Clear as day, Vanessa’s voice echoed from the tablet's speaker, recorded through the smart-home intercom system in the garage: “Brakes severed. Once she hits the PCH curve near Malibu, she won't be able to stop. The empire will be ours, Sebastian won't suspect a thing, and the boy will be next.”
The room went deathly silent. You could hear a pin drop on the marble floor.
Sebastian slowly raised his head. His eyes, swimming with horror and unshed tears, locked onto Vanessa. All the grief, all the guilt he had carried for six months over his wife's tragic accident dissolved into a blazing, terrifying fury.
"You..." Sebastian whispered, his voice trembling with rage. "You killed my wife. And you were finishing off my son."
Vanessa backed away toward the door, her eyes wild, her breathing ragged. "I did it for us, Sebastian! For our future!"
Before she could reach the hallway, Mrs. Gable—her face set in stone, her illusion of blind loyalty shattered forever—stepped directly into the doorway, blocking Vanessa's escape with arms crossed over her chest.
May you like
"You don't move an inch, you venomous snake," Mrs. Gable said coldly.
Two minutes later, the wail of police sirens pierced the quiet Beverly Hills night, echoing up the canyon.
