Chapter 10 - THE POOL HOUSE VIDEO
There was a camera in the pool house bedroom.
I had never known.
Daniel found the hidden device listed on the mansion network under the name WEATHER SENSOR 4.
It had recorded for nine months.
Not constantly.
Only when the room was occupied.
Adrian and I had stayed there during renovations.
So had I, alone, while recovering from a miscarriage eight months earlier.
I stopped breathing when Daniel told me.
"He recorded me?"
"Looks like it."
"Why?"
"We don't know yet."
But I did.
During those weeks, I cried constantly.
I barely slept.
I spoke to Serena by phone about stepping away from the company.
I spoke to my therapist.
I had moments of grief Adrian could edit into instability.
My private pain had been turned into corporate ammunition.
That broke something different in me.
Not love.
That was already gone.
Trust in my own home.
Gabriel sat beside me in the hospital family room.
"You don't have to watch it."
"I need to know what they have."
"No. Your lawyers need to know. You don't."
I looked at him.
He had always been the brother who tried to stand between me and pain.
When we were children, he took blame for broken windows he did not break.
Our grandmother used to tell him, "Protection without permission can become another kind of control."
He remembered.
He exhaled.
"Your choice."
I chose not to watch.
Daniel's forensic team preserved it.
Serena obtained emergency orders restricting use or distribution.
Police added unlawful surveillance issues to the investigation.
Then Daniel found access logs.
Someone had downloaded selected clips three days before my birthday.
The user account belonged to Grant Ellis.
Our CFO.
Grant was supposed to be in London.
He was not.
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His passport had never left the country.
And his corporate car had been photographed near Vanessa's apartment the night before my party.
