When he sat down to examine Toby, he tried to wave off the injuries as mere accidents, but I stood over him, refusing to let him leave until he compiled a detailed, honest report.
After hours of intense pressure, he finally cracked and confessed that the boy had suffered two broken fingers and a cracked rib in the past, all of which were treated in private without ever stepping foot inside a proper hospital.
Madam Helen had made it very clear that those injuries were to be kept a secret at all costs.
Conrad, who had been listening to the entire conversation from the shadows of the hallway, walked into the room with his head hanging low.
For the first time in his life, he didn’t try to make excuses for his mother.
I also went directly to Toby’s private school and cornered his teacher, who finally admitted that she had seen the bruises and noticed his fear of going home, but the school administration had warned her to remain silent because the Wheelers provided significant funding for the school’s endowment.
I made it very clear that, from that second on, any sign of trouble would be reported directly to me and the local police, or I would make sure the school’s funding was the least of their worries.
That afternoon, I took Toby to a bookstore to pick out some new comics and then out for burgers at a quiet diner.
When I accidentally dropped a potato on the table, I watched in horror as he flinched, raised his arms in a defensive posture, and started stammering apologies.
“Nobody is ever going to hit you here for making a mistake,” I told him, my heart aching as he looked at me.
He looked at me with tears pooling in his eyes and asked, “Did my mother die because I was a bad boy?”
I pulled him into a hug, and he finally cried, truly cried, for the first time without needing to hide his grief.
When we returned to the estate, Conrad was waiting for us in the foyer with a legal contract, offering to sign over full parental authority to me, but only if I agreed to relinquish every single one of my financial rights to the marital estate.
I signed the papers without a single moment of hesitation.
