My Second Life Was for Revenge Against My Father

4: 4

On weekends, I chose to stay at the house.

One night, passing the study, I heard Selina inside, keeping her voice down on the phone.

"Next week... yeah, he's away on business. Come over that night." Her voice was low and hurried. "Don't drive that car of yours, it's too noticeable. Just this once. Do it and leave, understand?"

I stood outside the door and recorded the whole thing.

Then I slipped back to the end of the hall, as if I hadn't heard a thing.

The following Wednesday, Mortimer left on business, right on schedule.

Selina said she had a get-together with her girlfriends that night and told Madge and me to go out and enjoy ourselves.

I made plans with friends to check out a trendy new restaurant that had just opened.

Madge begged me to bring her along.

I happily agreed.

Then I had someone keep an eye on Madge, and I turned straight back to the villa.

At eleven that night, a gray Volkswagen pulled up at the villa's gate.

Selina got out and went inside together with the man in the driver's seat.

Neither of them turned on a light. They felt their way straight up to the second-floor guest room in the dark.

I followed behind them, my steps light as a cat's.

The moment the guest room door closed, I placed a video call to Mortimer.

"Dad, are you asleep?"

I kept my voice low, with a thread of nervousness in it.

On his end, Mortimer was still at a dinner, the background noisy.

"Not yet. Why are you still up so late?"

I spoke softly into the phone.

"I think someone's broken into the house."

"I heard noises coming from the guest room, really strange sounds... Dad, I'm a little scared."

Mortimer went tense all at once.

"Don't move. I'll send property security over!"

"It's fine, I'll just take a look. Maybe it's a stray cat."

I pointed the phone's camera at the guest room door and pushed it open.

On the screen, two bodies were tangled together.

Selina was on top of the man, her hair loose, her face lost in it.

And the man was none other than Nathan Lambert, the Henson family's private physician of ten years.

I let out a scream, and the phone "dropped" from my hand to the floor, but the camera landed facing up, at a perfect angle, the picture crystal clear.

On the other end, Mortimer was silent for a full five seconds.

Then came a roar I'd never heard from him before, like a beast.

I will never forget what that night looked like.

Mortimer tore back from out of town overnight, his face black as a pot bottom.

Selina knelt on the living room floor wrapped in a bedsheet, her knees bruised purple, her face a mess of tears and snot.

Nathan had bolted in the chaos, and Mortimer didn't chase him, probably deciding that dragging him back would only be more humiliating.

Selina clung to Mortimer's leg, her face pressed against his leather shoe.

"Mortimer, listen to me! He seduced me!"

"It was a moment of weakness! Give me one more chance!"

"A moment of weakness?" Mortimer kicked her off. "The way you were riding him just now didn't look like weakness to me!"

I huddled in the corner of the sofa with my face buried in my hands, my shoulders shaking, pretending to cry.

"Dad..." I said, my voice catching. "Don't be angry, your health comes first. You still have me. Aren't I your daughter?"

The words were like a needle straight into Selina's heart.

Her head snapped up and she glared at me, her eyes bloodshot, her voice shrill as a nail scraping a blackboard.

"It's you! You set this up to ruin me!"

I cried harder.

"Aunt Selina, what are you talking about? I don't know anything... I just heard the noises and got scared, so I called Dad..."