Chapter 324
As the door clicked shut behind her, Belle looked down at Kaiden with a slow smirk. She winked.
Grayson saw it.
A cold, heavy pit opened in his stomach.
That evening, the sun set over the Carson Estate.
Grayson stood at the front gate and pressed the buzzer.
Isolde walked out onto the porch. She didn’t open the gate. She stood behind the iron bars, arms crossed, watching him.
“I brought Kaiden to apologize,” Grayson said.
Kaiden dragged his feet along the path behind him, looking thoroughly bored.
𝖱𝖾𝘢𝗱 𝘧𝘳𝘦e nov𝖾𝘭𝘀 о𝘯 𝗀a𝗹𝘯о𝘷e𝗅𝗌.𝖼𝗼𝘮
“Let’s hear it,” Isolde said.
Kaiden mumbled at his shoes. “Sorry Effie got hurt.”
“Not good enough,” Isolde said. “Look at her.”
Effie stood behind the screen door, clutching her teddy bear. She looked terrified.
“Why do you hate me, Kaiden?” Effie asked softly.
Kaiden’s head snapped up.
“Because you’re weird!” he shouted. “And your mom is a loser!”
“Kaiden!” Grayson barked. “That’s enough.”
“He is repeating what he hears at home, Grayson,” Isolde said coldly.
Then Kaiden grabbed his own ankle.
“Ow! My leg!” he screamed, dropping to the ground in an elaborate sob. “She kicked me! Effie looked at me funny! She always stares, like she knows things!”
It was absurd. Effie was ten feet away, behind a closed door.
Grayson looked down at his son. Even he couldn’t sell this one to himself.
“You see?” Isolde said. “He is a pathological liar.”
“I’m going back to the school tomorrow,” she continued. “With a forensic data team.”
“Isolde,” Grayson said, his voice dropping. “Don’t destroy the school’s reputation. It’s my alma mater.”
“Then tell the truth,” Isolde said. “Or I will find it.”
Grayson exhaled. He glanced down at Kaiden, who was peeking through his fingers to gauge whether the performance was landing.
“I’ll check the security room myself,” Grayson said quietly. “Tonight. If there is footage, I will see it.”
“And if you find it?” Isolde asked. “Will you bury it?”
Grayson met her eyes. “I’m a father, Isolde. I want justice too.”
“We’ll see,” she said.
Grayson took Kaiden by the hand and walked him back to the car.
The moment the car door closed, Kaiden’s crying stopped instantly. He wiped his face with the back of his hand.
“Did I do good, Dad?” he asked brightly. “Mom said to cry if you got mad.”
Grayson went very still. His hands tightened on the steering wheel.
“Mom said that?” he whispered.
He drove to the school in silence. He left Kaiden in the car with the nanny, walked into the building, and went straight to the server room.
“Open the backup logs,” Grayson ordered the Headmaster.
The server room was cold, humming steadily with the sound of cooling fans. Blue light from the monitors cast a pale glow across Grayson’s face.
The Headmaster typed a password with shaking fingers. They slipped on the keys.
“Mr. Lancaster, really, it’s all just glitches,” he stammered.
“Play the file from 2:00 PM yesterday,” Grayson said. His voice was hard.
The video loaded. It was grainy, but clear enough.
Effie was sitting alone on a bench, reading a book.
.
.