Who Did This to You
Chapter 02 - Who Did This to You
Adrian carried Claire to the guest suite down the hall, laying her carefully on the bed, his hands shaking as he examined the bruising more closely, the specific, controlled panic of a man trying to hold himself together for someone else's sake.
"I'm calling a doctor," he said. "And I'm calling the police."
"No," Claire said quickly, grabbing his wrist. "Not yet. Please, Adrian. I need to explain first, before anyone else gets involved."
"She hurt you," Adrian said, voice tight. "In my own home. I don't need an explanation to know that requires the police."
"I know how it looks," Claire said. "I need you to understand what happened before this becomes something bigger than either of us can control."
Adrian sat on the edge of the bed, forcing himself to slow down, though every instinct in him wanted to march back into that main room and demand answers from his mother immediately.
"Tell me," he said. "Everything."
Claire took a shaking breath. "I found something. In your father's old study, three days ago, while I was looking for the extra key to the wine cellar for the caterer. A hidden drawer, behind the bookshelf. Financial records, Adrian. Years of them."
"What kind of records," Adrian asked.
"Transfers," Claire said. "Out of the family trust, into accounts I didn't recognize. Going back at least eight years. I didn't understand what I was looking at until I found something else in that same drawer."
"What else."
Claire's eyes filled again. "A letter. From your father. Dated three weeks before he died."
Adrian went very still. "What did it say."
"I only got through the first page before I heard someone coming," Claire said. "I hid the letter, and I didn't tell you yet, because I wanted to understand more before I said anything that might not be true. I went back tonight, while you were finishing your call downstairs, to look again. Your mother found me in the study."
"And she did this," Adrian said, voice hardening.
"She asked what I'd found," Claire said. "I told her I didn't know what she meant. She didn't believe me. And then, before I could even reach the door, someone grabbed me from behind."
Adrian felt his stomach drop entirely. "Someone else was there."
"I never saw a face," Claire said. "Just hands, pulling me back, and then your mother's cane, and I don't remember much clearly after that except crawling under the table in the main room, trying to get somewhere she couldn't reach me easily."
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Adrian sat with the full shape of what his fiancée had just survived, understanding now that this wasn't simply his mother's temper finally boiling over. Someone else, someone with access to this penthouse, someone willing to physically restrain a woman so his mother could strike her, had been standing in this apartment tonight.
"I need to see that letter," he said. "And I need to know exactly who else was in this apartment."
