As soon as we were outside, Ethan skipped ahead toward the car. I caught Collins’s eyes from across the street. He gave me a sharp nod.
He had everything he needed—the packet, the footage, and the timing.
The drive to school was quiet until Ethan piped up, “Mom, why don’t you ever eat Aunt Vanessa’s food? She keeps asking me about it.”
I gripped the wheel. “Because I’m watching my diet,” I said smoothly.
“And you don’t have to eat it either if you don’t like it.”
He tilted his head. “It does taste weird sometimes. Like metal.”
The words cut straight through me.
He had noticed, but he hadn’t known how to explain it.
I forced a smile into my voice. “Then don’t eat it anymore, bud. Stick to what I make.”
At the base, I parked and pulled out my phone to check the footage again. The video clearly showed Vanessa slipping the powder into the eggs when she thought I wasn’t looking.
It was undeniable.
Collins called me. “She’s cracking. The mention of moving assets rattled her. She’s going to push harder now.”
“Good,” I said. “The more desperate she gets, the more careless she’ll be.”
All that evening, back at the house, I sat across from Vanessa again as she sipped wine like it was any other family night. She tried to talk about old memories—high school dances, family road trips—but I wasn’t buying it.
Every word out of her mouth felt rehearsed, like she was trying to lull me into forgetting what I already knew.
I leaned back in my chair. “Do you ever wonder what it would have been like if things were different? If you’d joined the Army instead of me?”
Her smile faltered. “Me? Please. I don’t take orders from anyone.”
“Exactly,” I said, my tone sharp. “You always wanted control.”
She set down her glass with a little too much force, wine sloshing over the rim. “Maybe I just didn’t like playing second fiddle my whole life.”
The silence that followed was thick. Ethan, thankfully, had gone upstairs already.
I let her words hang in the air, studying her. That bitterness wasn’t new. It was the same venom she’d carried for years. Now it was just more literal.
I stood, gathering dishes. “Well, at least now we know who’s really in control of this house,” I said evenly.
Her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t reply. She grabbed her purse and muttered something about leaving early.
I watched from the window as she walked to her car, her shoulders stiff, her movements jerky.
When the tail lights disappeared down the street, I exhaled slowly.
The psychological battle was shifting.
She thought she was manipulating me with fake smiles and poisoned meals. But the truth was, every move she made was one step deeper into the trap.
I locked the door, turned off the kitchen light, and climbed the stairs to check on Ethan. He was already asleep, sprawled out with his comic book still open on his chest.
