Chapter 5: The Footage
Marcus's attorney was a woman named Grace Holloway.
I had met her twice — once at a firm dinner, once when we updated our wills after the pregnancy.
Both times she had been precise, unhurried, and slightly frightening in the way that very competent people sometimes are.
She arrived at the hospital at half past eight with a leather briefcase and a formal preservation order already drafted.
"The hospital cannot legally withhold footage that is material to a potential assault on a patient," she told the administrator, who had been called back in from home and looked like he resented every second of it.
"Particularly a pregnant patient.
Particularly when the incident occurred on their premises.
You preserve it tonight, or we file for emergency disclosure at nine a.m.
tomorrow and you explain to a judge why you waited."
The administrator preserved it tonight.
Grace sat beside me while we waited for the file to be transferred to her secure tablet.
Marcus stood near the door, arms crossed, saying nothing.
"How are you feeling?" Grace asked me.
"Tired."
"The baby?"
"Strong heartbeat.
They're keeping me until midnight."
She nodded.
"Good." She opened her briefcase and removed the property transfer document — Marcus had sent her a photo of it two hours ago.
"I've already pulled the county records.
The transfer was filed but not yet executed.
It requires one more signature to complete — yours, under duress, or a court order dissolving the marriage." She looked up.
"Neither of those things has happened."
"She was working toward one of them," I said.
"Yes." Grace set the document on the bedside table.
"The question is how far the plan extended.
The property transfer is one piece.
I want to know what else was being arranged."
A knock at the door.
A hospital IT technician, young and uncomfortable, holding a tablet.
"The footage is ready," he said.
Grace took the tablet.
She set it on the tray table where all three of us could see it, angled the screen, and pressed play.
The timestamp read 6:14 p.m.
— forty-seven minutes before Marcus had walked through the door.
The camera angle was wide.
It caught the full room: the bed, the window, the door, the corner where I had been standing when it started.
I watched myself on the screen.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, phone to my ear.
I could see my own face — tense, focused, one hand pressed flat against my belly the way I did when I was trying to stay calm.
Then the door opened.
Isabella walked in without knocking.
I watched myself look up.
Watched myself say something — the audio was faint but Grace turned the volume up and suddenly the room filled with my own voice from forty-seven minutes ago.
*"I'll call you back."*
I ended the call.
Stood up.
"Isabella.
I didn't know you were coming."
On screen, Isabella smiled.
It was not the smile she had shown Marcus.
This one was slower.
Settled.
"I know you didn't," she said.
"That's the point."
She walked toward me.
I stepped back once, instinctively, and my back met the wall beside the window.
"You called Eleanor," Isabella said.
"That was a mistake, Khloe.
A very stupid mistake."
"Eleanor is Marcus's mother.
I had every right—"
"You had the right to stay quiet and wait." Isabella's voice was pleasant.
Almost gentle.
"That's what you should have done.
Stayed quiet.
Had your baby.
Let things happen the way they were going to happen anyway."
"What things?"
Isabella tilted her head.
"Did you really think Marcus was going to stay?
With you?" A small laugh.
"He came back to me six months ago.
Did he tell you that?
One night.
His choice.
And that was when we made our arrangement."
"You're lying."
"The property transfer has both our signatures on it, Khloe." She took one more step forward.
"His.
And mine.
He signed it willingly."
On screen, I watched my own face.
Watched what the words did to it.
"That's not true," I said.
But my voice had changed.
Isabella saw it.
She moved closer.
And then — on the recording — her hand came up.
Not to push.
Not yet.
Just to touch my face.
One finger along my jaw, the way you might touch something you already owned.
"Walk away," she said softly.
"Take whatever settlement we offer.
Raise your child somewhere quiet.
And this ends cleanly."
Grace paused the footage.
The room was silent.
Marcus was looking at the frozen image on the screen — Isabella's hand against my face, my back against the wall.
"Keep playing it," he said.
His voice was very quiet.
Grace pressed play.
May you like
On screen, I pushed Isabella's hand away.
And that was when her expression changed for the first time.
