Chapter 4 - Beatrice Montgomery’s War
Beatrice Montgomery’s house looked nothing like the empire she had been born into.
No marble floors. No chandeliers. No servants drifting silently through halls. Just books stacked on tables, old legal files piled in boxes, photographs turned face down, and a kettle screaming on the stove like it had been waiting years to announce trouble.
She poured tea into two chipped mugs and placed one in front of me.
“You look like hell,” she said.
“I’ve had a strange two days.”
“My brother has that effect on people.”
I didn’t touch the tea. “You know about Camila?”
Beatrice’s face hardened. “I know my niece was turned into a prisoner because she made the unforgivable mistake of loving someone Warren couldn’t control.”
“We barely knew each other.”
“That may be true.” Beatrice sat across from me. “But she chose you in the one way Warren could never undo. She refused to lie about you.”
I placed Camila’s letter and Mara’s flash drive on the table.
Beatrice didn’t reach for them immediately. For the first time, her fierce expression cracked.
“She got a letter out,” she whispered.
“You knew she was trying?”
“I knew she was alive. I suspected the girls existed. I didn’t know where the proof was.” She looked at me. “And I didn’t know Warren had found the father.”
“He threatened my son.”
Beatrice’s gaze sharpened. “What son?”
I explained Noah. My sister. The adoption. The tiny apartment in Queens. The life I had built by keeping my head down and surviving one day at a time.
When I finished, Beatrice leaned back.
“That complicates things.”
“It doesn’t change what I have to do.”
“No,” she said. “It changes what Warren will use against you.”
She opened the flash drive on an old laptop that looked like it belonged in a museum. There were folders labeled with dates. Medical reports. Birth certificates. Audio files. Scanned notes in Camila’s handwriting.
Beatrice clicked the first recording.
Camila’s voice filled the room.
Weak, but unmistakable.
“Dr. Bell, I am not delusional. My daughters’ father is Nathan Reed. My father fabricated his death. I need an independent attorney.”
A male voice answered, calm and cold.
“Ms. Montgomery, your father is only trying to protect you from another episode.”
“I am not having an episode.”
“Your fixation on this man is part of the concern.”
The recording ended.
Beatrice closed her eyes.
I felt physically sick.
“They made her sound insane because she told the truth,” I said.
“That is Warren’s specialty.” Beatrice opened another file. “He doesn’t destroy people by shouting. He destroys them by making the room doubt their sanity.”
We found the birth certificates next.
Regina Eleanor Montgomery.
Lucy Mara Montgomery.
Valerie Grace Montgomery.
Father listed- Unknown.
Unknown.
The word hit me harder than I expected.
Seven years of unknown.
Beatrice printed everything. Then she pulled a thick folder from a locked cabinet.
“This is what I have on Warren. Old business fraud, witness intimidation, illegal guardianship maneuvers, doctors on payroll. None of it was enough alone. But with Camila’s files and the girls’ statements, we may have a path.”
“To custody?”
“To truth first. Custody later.” She lit another cigarette and ignored my look. “Do you have money for a lawyer?”
I laughed once. “I fix engines.”
“Then you’re lucky I hate my brother more than I like retirement.”
She made three calls.
The first was to a journalist named Tessa Grant, who had apparently spent ten years waiting for someone inside the Montgomery family to bleed.
The second was to a family attorney named Jonah Price, who agreed to meet us after midnight without asking why.
The third call she made standing at the window, voice low.
“All right,” she said. “You owe me. I need a forensic doctor willing to review medical abuse records quietly.”
When she hung up, she looked twenty years older.
“Tonight, you sleep here.”
“I need to get back to Noah.”
“You bring Noah here.”
“No.”
“That wasn’t a suggestion.” Her eyes flashed. “Warren has already photographed him. Your apartment is compromised.”
I wanted to argue.
I didn’t.
By nine that night, Noah was sitting on Beatrice’s couch eating toast with jam while she pretended not to be charmed by him.
“Is she a spy?” Noah whispered to me.
Beatrice heard him. “Retired villain, actually.”
Noah nodded solemnly. “Cool.”
For the first time in forty-eight hours, I almost smiled.
Then the doorbell rang.
Every adult in the room froze.
Beatrice checked the camera by the door and swore softly.
On the small screen stood two police officers.
Behind them stood a man in a tailored coat.
Warren Montgomery.
Even through grainy black-and-white footage, I recognized him immediately.
Beatrice turned to me. “Take Noah upstairs. Back room. Lock the door.”
Noah’s face went pale. “Dad?”
“It’s okay,” I lied. “Go with Ms. Beatrice.”
“No,” Beatrice said. “I’ll answer.”
She opened the door with the chain still on.
“Warren,” she said. “You look embalmed.”
His voice came smooth and pleasant. “Beatrice. Still decorating with resentment, I see.”
“Still kidnapping relatives, I see.”
One officer shifted uncomfortably.
Warren smiled. “We’re here because a man named Nathan Reed has been harassing my family and stalking my granddaughters.”
My heart slammed.
Beatrice didn’t blink. “That so?”
“We have security footage of him trespassing on private property.”
“You also have security footage of my niece being held like a prisoner, or did you delete that angle?”
Warren’s smile thinned.
“I know he’s inside,” he said.
Beatrice leaned closer to the crack in the door. “Then come back with a warrant.”
One of the officers cleared his throat. “Ma’am, we’re just trying to ask a few questions.”
“No,” Beatrice said. “You’re trying to intimidate a witness before my attorney can file emergency motions in family court.”
Warren’s eyes flickered.
Only for a second.
But I saw it.
So did Beatrice.
She smiled. “Oh, you didn’t know about that part?”
Warren stepped closer. “You always were dramatic.”
“And you always were sloppy when frightened.”
His gaze lifted.
Somehow, through the chain gap, through the shadows, he found me at the end of the hallway.
Our eyes met.
He looked nothing like a man afraid of being exposed.
He looked like a man deciding how much damage he was willing to cause.
Then he smiled at me.
“Mr. Reed,” he called softly. “You should have stayed dead.”
Noah clutched my hand.
Warren turned and left.
The officers followed.
Beatrice closed the door and locked three bolts.
Nobody spoke for a moment.
Then her landline rang.
She answered.
Listened.
Her face changed.
“What?” she said.
A pause.
Then, quietly, “When?”
She hung up and looked at me.
“That was Jonah Price.”
“What happened?”
“Warren just filed first.”
“Filed what?”
Beatrice’s voice turned grim.
May you like
“A restraining order against you. On behalf of the triplets.”
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