David: You... you dropped him.
His voice was barely a whisper, a rasp of air caught in raw disbelief.
Victoria: David, no! That’s a distorted lens! You know smart cameras warp wide angles!
David: You pushed your own hands forward and released him into empty air!
David spun around, clutching his crying infant against his chest so tightly his knuckles turned chalk white.
Victoria: It was an accident! He kicked out of the swaddle! My hands slipped!
Chloe: You didn't slip! I watched you lean over and let go on purpose! You looked right at the floor!
Victoria: Shut your mouth, you little brat!
Victoria's sweet facade vanished instantly, replaced by a snarling sneer that made Chloe shrink behind her father's legs.
David: Do not speak to my daughter like that! Don't you dare raise your voice in this house!
Elena: I was cleaning the grandfather clock, Mr. Vance. I heard a quiet gasp, and when I looked up, she was already letting go.
Elena stood up slowly, her hands pressing against her bruised knees to steady herself.
Elena: If I hadn’t dived... if my foot had slipped on the rug... Liam wouldn't be breathing right now.
The reality crashed into David's mind with sickening weight.
His three-month-old boy had been dropped twenty feet onto hard wood.
David: Why? Victoria, why in God's name would you do this to our son?!
Victoria: He is not my son! And you know that damn well!
The confession erupted from Victoria before she could bite her tongue.
David blinked, taking a step backward as if struck across the face.
David: What did you just say?
Victoria: You heard me. You think I wanted to raise your dead wife’s surrogate baby while you leave everything to them?
Elena: Mrs. Vance, you signed the legal guardianship papers willingly!
Victoria: Shut up, you worthless maid! You don’t know anything about the real world!
David: Liam was conceived through Sarah’s frozen embryos before she died of cancer. You knew that when we married!
Victoria: Yes! And you promised me a real marriage, David! Not a shrine to a ghost!
Victoria paced at the foot of the stairs, her manicured nails digging into the palms of her hands.
Victoria: Your lawyer drafted a prenup that leaves me practically pennies if we divorce without a biological child of my own!
David: So you tried to murder a defenseless newborn to frame Elena?!
Victoria: If the surrogate child died under the maid’s negligence, the estate trust would have defaulted to me as your sole surviving spouse’s future children!
David: You monstrous sociopath...
David stared at the woman he had married eight months ago, feeling physically sick to his stomach.
Chloe: Daddy, is Liam going to be okay?
David: Yes, baby. Liam is safe because Elena caught him. Chloe, take your brother into the kitchen right now.
Elena: Let me hold him, Mr. Vance. I’ll keep both of them safe while you deal with this.
David looked into Elena's honest, tear-stained eyes and handed the baby back into her capable arms.
David: I am so sorry, Elena. I am so terribly sorry.
Elena: Just make sure justice is served, sir.
Elena took Liam gently against her shoulder, took Chloe by the hand, and backed away into the safety of the adjoining hallway.
David turned back toward Victoria, his jaw locked, and dialed his private estate attorney and the local chief of police.
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