Chapter 2
Story: The Stiletto Heel on Her Ribs Was Just the Beginning—He Walked In and the Camera Was Still Rolling
The silence in the suite lasted exactly four seconds before Marcus's voice broke it.
"What camera?"
Camille's eyes didn't leave Eleanor's face. She watched the color come back to Eleanor's cheeks in patches—pink spots spreading over the pallor like a rash. Watched her mouth open and close twice before any sound came out.
"That wasn't..." Eleanor swallowed. "That's not what happened."
Marcus stepped fully into the room, his polished shoes crunching on a piece of broken crystal. "Eleanor. What is she talking about?"
"Nothing." Eleanor's voice was too fast now, the practiced calm cracking. "She's confused. She hit her head—look at her, Marcus. She fell. She's been unstable all night, I told you when you asked me to check on her—"
"You never asked me to check on her." Marcus's voice was flat. "I didn't even know you were here."
Eleanor's hand fluttered to her throat, touching the diamond drops at her ears. "Well, I—I was in the building. I heard she was here and I thought—"
"You thought you'd visit my pregnant wife in her private suite at midnight." Marcus's eyes were moving now, taking in the scene with a new perspective: the shattered glasses, the overturned cushion on the chaise, the scuff marks on the marble where Camille had fallen. And Camille herself, still on the floor, one hand pinned against her ribs, her champagne silk gown torn at the hem and stained dark at the shoulder. "After the charity gala. Alone."
"Please, you have to understand." Eleanor's voice found its pleading register, soft and desperate. "I've been so worried about you. About your marriage. Camille works so much, she's always been so driven, and I thought maybe she wasn't giving you the attention you deserved—"
"She's seven months pregnant with my child. She's the CEO of a billion-dollar company. She closed a merger while in her second trimester." Marcus's voice was rising now, the exhaustion burning away into something harder. "You came to check if she was 'giving me enough attention'?"
The baby kicked again. Camille's hand tightened against her stomach, the only reassurance she could find in the chaos. She tried to push herself up, but her ribs screamed in protest, and she fell back with a gasp.
The man in the charcoal suit moved.
Camille's uncle crossed the room in four long strides, his polished shoes making no sound on the marble. He crouched beside her, one hand finding her elbow, the other pressing gently against her back, steadying her.
"Easy," he said. His voice was low, rough with the particular gravel of a man who had spent a life making other people nervous. "Don't move. I've called for a scan."
"Uncle Richard." Camille's voice cracked. "The baby—"
"Quiet." His eyes were dark and hard as he helped her sit up, easing her back against the base of the chaise lounge. "The way I hear it, you just got kicked in the ribs by a woman wearing weapons on her feet. The baby's fine. You're going to be fine. And that," he nodded at Eleanor, "is going to wish she'd never learned your name."
Eleanor's face cycled through several expressions in the span of a heartbeat. Indignation. Fear. A flash of desperate calculation as she tried to work out who this man was and how much power he might hold.
"Who are you?" Eleanor's voice was thin. "Do you work here?"
Richard Sterling rose to his full height. He was not a tall man, but he carried himself like one, broad shoulders and a flat stare that had ended more negotiations than Camille could count. He was her mother's brother, the man who had pulled her out of her first board meeting when she was twenty-six and on the verge of a breakdown, the man who had taught her that power was not the ability to shout but the ability to wait.
"I own this hospital," he said quietly. "Every camera on every floor reports to my office. Every recording is stored on a server that I control. And right now, there are three different feeds capturing everything that happened in this room tonight."
Eleanor's breath caught.
"You might know me as Richard Sterling. Camille's uncle." He tilted his head, studying her the way a man might study an insect that had wandered into his home. "I heard a woman attacked my niece in her private suite tonight. I saw the alert from the motion sensors and thought it was a false alarm."
He let the silence sit for a moment.
"It was not a false alarm."
"I—" Eleanor's voice cracked. "This is a misunderstanding. I was coming to—to check on her, like I said, and she just lost her temper. She's been so stressed with the merger and the pregnancy and—"
"The camera will show the truth."
Eleanor stopped talking.
Marcus took a step toward her, his face pale and hard. "Eleanor. What did you do?"
"I didn't—"
"Don't." Marcus's voice was barely controlled. "Don't lie to me again. I heard you, in the doorway. I heard you tell me she attacked you. And I saw her, Eleanor. I saw her on the floor. I saw the blood."
Blood. Camille hadn't noticed it, but she reached up now and touched her temple, and her fingers came away dark. She must have hit her head when she fell. The trickle of warmth she'd felt on her face hadn't been sweat after all.
"Marcus, please—"
Marcus turned away from Eleanor and crossed to Camille, dropping to his knees beside her. His hands hovered over her, trembling, as if he was afraid to touch her.
"Camille. Oh god, Camille." His voice broke. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know—I came in and she was already talking, and I—I panicked. I should have—"
"You should have known," she said quietly. The words came out softer than she intended, tired more than angry. "You came through the door and saw your pregnant wife on the floor and you hesitated. For one second, you hesitated."
"I'm sorry." His eyes were wet. "I'm so sorry, Camille. I didn't—I couldn't think—"
The door opened again, wider this time, and a team of nurses in navy scrubs poured in. Behind them came a resident in a white coat, his face all business. Richard Sterling raised a hand, and they stopped, waiting.
"Hold the scan," he said. "I want a full workup. Fetal monitoring, ultrasound, and a CT of her ribs. No excuses, no delays."
"Yes, sir." The resident gestured to the nurses, and they moved to Camille, lifting her carefully onto a stretcher that had appeared silently in the doorway.
"Wait." Camille caught Richard's sleeve. "The recordings. I need—"
"I'll handle the recordings." Richard's voice was soft, but his eyes were hard. "You take care of yourself and the baby. I'll take care of everything else."
He looked at Eleanor, who stood frozen by the window, her emerald gown catching the city lights, her face a mask of barely contained terror.
"You," he said, "aren't going anywhere. The police are already on their way. And I've instructed security to hold the footage until they arrive. We'll walk through every frame together."
Eleanor opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
The nurses wheeled Camille through the door, Marcus walking beside her, his hand finding hers. The baby kicked again, a small, determined movement, and Camille let herself breathe.
She was alive. The baby was alive. And Eleanor Prescott, for all her careful planning, had just made the biggest mistake of her life.
She had attacked a Sterling in a room that belonged to one.
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