Clara: It started two months ago, Mr. Vance. Right after you signed the new company merger and started traveling to New York every week.
Ethan: Go on, Clara. Speak freely. No one here is going to hurt you.
Clara: As soon as your limousine cleared the front gates, Mrs. Vance would change completely. She stopped feeding Toby his warm milk on schedule.
Vanessa: He was getting fat! I was adjusting his diet according to luxury infant wellness standards!
Clara: She left him in his crib for six hours straight while she sat by the pool drinking wine with her friends! When I tried to go upstairs to feed him, she locked the nursery door from the outside and took the key!
Ethan: You locked my infant son in a room without food?
Vanessa: He needed to learn self-soothing! Every modern parenting book says infants need to learn how to cry themselves to sleep!
Ethan: At five months old?! You left a starving baby locked in a dark room for six hours?!
Vanessa: I was stressed, Ethan! You are never here! You leave me in this giant, lonely mansion with a baby that isn't even mine!
Ethan: You knew I had a motherless baby when you begged me to marry you! You swore on your own mother's grave that you would love Toby like your own blood!
Vanessa: I tried! But he looks just like his mother! Every time I look at his face, I am reminded that I was just your second choice!
Ethan: You were never my second choice, Vanessa. You were a mistake. A massive, terrible mistake that I am rectifying today.
Clara: That's not all, Mr. Vance. Last week, I found marks on his arms. Red pinch marks.
Ethan: Pinch marks?
Clara: Yes, sir. I took photos with my phone because I knew no one would believe a maid over the lady of the house. I kept them saved in a hidden folder.
Vanessa: You sneaked around taking pictures of my baby?! You perverted freak!
Clara: He is not your baby! You hate him! You told your friend on the phone last Tuesday that you wished the baby would just disappear so you could inherit the full estate trust without sharing it!
The entire hall went dead silent. The white crown molding seemed to echo Clara's brave, trembling voice. Ethan's face drained of all color, leaving behind an expression of pure, icy fury.
Ethan: Repeat what she said, Clara. Word for word.
Clara: She said, "If the little brat isn't around, Ethan's sixty-million-dollar life insurance and family trust fund reverts entirely to the spouse." She was laughing on the terrace, sir.
Vanessa: She's making it up! It's a conspiracy! She wants to frame me so you'll give her a huge bonus!
Ethan: David, pull up the hidden security cameras from the nursery and hallway ceiling mounts.
Vanessa: What... what hidden cameras?
Ethan: Did you really think a CEO of a security tech firm wouldn't have high-definition hidden nanny cameras installed in his own home?
Vanessa: You... you spied on me?
Ethan: I installed them three days ago when Toby started acting terrified whenever you walked into the room. I had a bad feeling, but I prayed to God I was wrong.
Vanessa's knees buckled, and she sank slowly down onto the hardwood oak floor, her beige dress spreading around her like a wilted flower.
Vanessa: Ethan... please... let me explain...
Ethan: Explain what? Explain how you pinched my son until he bruised? Or how you dragged him across the floor ten minutes ago?