Chapter 4 - The Ransom Play
I stared at the small, black lens hidden perfectly inside the hollowed-out drywall.
I carefully extracted the camera and plugged its memory card into my phone using an adapter I kept in my car.
Emma must have installed it weeks ago when she first started feeling unsafe around my mother.
I opened the video files, praying that the camera had captured the argument in the hallway from six weeks ago.
The footage was crystal clear, recording not only the physical shove, but every single word my mother had hissed at my pregnant wife.
But the camera had captured something much more terrifying than just the assault.
In another video clip recorded while we were both at work, Caleb and my mother were standing in our living room going through our mail.
My mother held up a document with a golden seal, laughing as she told Caleb that the baby's inheritance was almost theirs.
She clearly stated that my late father had set up a multi-million dollar trust fund exclusively for his firstborn grandchild.
The money completely bypassed my mother, but she could control the funds if she was granted legal guardianship of the child.
Their entire campaign of psychological and physical abuse was designed to push Emma to a mental breakdown.
They wanted to prove she was an unfit mother so they could institutionalize her, take the baby, and seize the massive fortune.
I sprinted back to my car, clutching the memory card like it was a loaded weapon.
I drove back to the hospital, breaking every speed limit in the city to get back to my wife.
When I reached the maternity ward, the private security guard I had hired was lying unconscious on the floor.
May you like
I kicked the hospital room door open, my heart screaming in my chest.
The bed was completely empty, the IV line had been violently ripped from the machine, and a fresh trail of blood led toward the emergency stairwell.
