His face turned ashen, his smug confidence evaporating as he realized I was not bluffing.
Then I delivered the line that effectively shattered the foundations of his entire world: “You thought you were marrying me to save your family’s reputation, but perhaps I am here to save your son from your own family.”
Little did we know, Toby had been standing just behind the bedroom door, listening to every word we said.
The move he made next would push the entire Wheeler family to the very brink of a catastrophe that nobody could stop.
Chapter 2: The Truth Comes To Light
The next morning, the house was eerily quiet, and I realized with a jolt of panic that Toby didn’t show up for his usual breakfast.
I raced to his room only to find his bed perfectly made and a note resting on the pillow, written in shaky, child-sized handwriting: “I left so that you and my dad wouldn’t have to keep fighting because of me.”
Conrad was frantic, mobilizing security guards and private drivers to scour the estate, but I was the only one who actually listened when Toby told me about his favorite memories.
He had once told me that his mother used to take him to a hidden corner of a small park next to the old stone parish in the historic district, so that was where I headed.
I found him curled up under the sprawling branches of a jacaranda tree, clutching that same t-shirt the grandmother had punished him for wearing the day before.
When Conrad tried to rush toward him, the boy flinched violently and scrambled to hide behind me, a gesture of mistrust that seemed to break Conrad’s heart in two.
We brought him back home, and I immediately called our family physician, a man who had been on the Wheeler payroll for decades.
