My stepmother slammed me into the bathroom glass door, but when my father believed that I was to blame, fear suddenly appeared on her face

My stepmother slammed me into the bathroom glass door, while my father was downstairs presenting his new project to investors.

For several seconds I understood nothing. I heard only a thin, constant buzzing in my ears. Then warm liquid ran down from my forehead, and I touched it with trembling fingers. My hand was covered in blood.

Evelyn knelt beside me. She was not frightened. She did not call anyone. On the contrary, she took a clean white towel and began wiping the blood spilled on the marble floor.

“Don’t worry,” she told me calmly. “Your father will never see this.”

I tried to lift my head, but the room immediately spun. Broken shards of glass glittered at my feet, as if small pieces of ice had been scattered across the floor.

“Why are you doing this to me?” I barely asked.

Evelyn bent closer. The sweet, heavy smell of her perfume mixed with the metallic smell of blood.

“Because you have been a problem since the day your father married me.”

“I have done nothing to you.”

“You should have left as soon as you graduated from college. You should have built your own life. You should never have had a place in this house.”

Something even more terrible was hiding behind her words. I saw it in her eyes.

“What do you mean?”

Evelyn chuckled.

“You really don’t know?”

She leaned toward my ear and whispered:

“Your father changed his will three months ago. He left most of his entire fortune to you.”

It was as if a heavy stone fell into my heart.

“That is impossible.”

“It is possible. And tonight I will make sure that he changes his mind.”

Laughter and the clinking of glasses rose from downstairs. Only one floor separated us from the people discussing my father’s future while I lay on the bloody floor.

I tried to crawl toward the door, but Evelyn grabbed me by the ankle.

“Where are you going?”

“I need to call Dad.”

“Call him. Tell him that you attacked me first.”

She stood up, struck herself hard in the face, and screamed:

“Help me!”

I stared at her in astonishment.

“What are you doing?”

She struck herself in the face a second time, then tore the sleeve of her dress.

“Help me! Nina has gone crazy!”

Heavy footsteps thundered on the stairs. My father rushed in first, followed by three investors. His face immediately turned white, though not because of me.

Evelyn fell to the floor.

“She hit me!” she shouted. “She told me I wasn’t her mother and that I had to disappear from the house!”

“Dad, it wasn’t like that…”

“Enough, Nina.”

That one word fell on me more heavily than the glass door.

My mother died when I was twelve. My father raised me alone for years, and I believed that I was the most important person to him. Evelyn had seemed kind at first, preparing breakfast for me in the mornings and calling me affectionate names. Everything changed the day my father first mentioned his fortune.

Evelyn was now leaning against my father’s chest, but when she looked toward me, she smiled for a moment. It was a small, malicious smile that no one else would notice.

But I noticed it.

That was when I remembered my dark green robe, in whose inside pocket I had hidden my phone. Ten minutes earlier I had started recording because Evelyn was threatening me. I slipped my fingers into the pocket and touched the screen.

“Dad,” I said shakily, “there is something you need to hear.”

The smile disappeared from Evelyn’s face. I pressed the recording button, and her own voice rang out in the room:

“Your father thinks you are his favorite girl, but tonight you will make him believe that you attacked me first…”

Evelyn’s voice froze in the room.

My father slowly looked at me.

“When did you record this?”

“Before she attacked me.”

Evelyn reached toward the phone.

“It’s fake! Nina is setting everything up!”

One of the investors blocked her path.

“Step back.”

Evelyn tried to escape, but stopped at the door. My father stood in front of her, and for the first time he was no longer protecting her.

“You knew about my will?” he asked her.

Evelyn’s lips froze.

“I only…”

“Answer me!”

In the silence, the phone played another recording. Evelyn’s voice sounded again, this time speaking about the will.

My father looked at the broken glass, then at my bloody forehead, and finally at his wife.

“This is not the first time it has happened,” one of the investors said, taking out his phone. “I was checking the cameras in the guest wing. I found an old recording there.”

Evelyn appeared on the screen. In front of her stood my father’s older sister, Elena. Six months earlier, everyone had thought that Elena had accidentally fallen down the stairs.

But in the footage, another man could be seen behind her.

My father’s personal lawyer, Victor Morel.

He was holding a folder.

My father barely exhaled.

“What was in that folder?”

Victor called him immediately.

The phone rang only once. Then Evelyn’s phone rang.

She looked at the screen and went pale.

“Don’t answer,” I told my father. “Not yet.”

But before the ringing stopped, Victor’s voice sounded through the room:

“The will has already been changed. Now get rid of the girl too…”

Victor’s voice came from the phone’s small speaker so clearly that it seemed as if he himself were standing in the room.

Everyone fell silent.

My father took the phone from my hand and turned on the speaker.

“The will has already been changed,” Victor was saying. “Now get rid of the girl too, or you will both go to prison.”

Then Evelyn’s quiet voice sounded:

“After Elena, everything should have been easy. Nina is getting in our way.”

My father put the phone on the table. His hands were trembling so badly that he touched a glass, and it fell to the floor.

“Elena…” he rasped.

The investor, Levan, opened a tablet.

“This is not only audio, Mr. Carter. The camera recording is from six months ago. The time and date are also saved in the system.”

The upper landing of the stairs appeared on the screen. Elena stood by the railing, holding an old wooden box. Evelyn approached her from behind.

“Give me the documents,” Evelyn was saying.

“You and Victor are deceiving my brother,” Elena answered. “I will tell him everything.”

In the footage, Evelyn pushed the woman. Elena fell down the stairs.

My father closed his eyes.

“Oh my God…”

“She survived,” Levan said. “But Evelyn and Victor told everyone that the old woman had lost her balance. Then Elena was transferred to a private clinic, where no one could see her.”

Evelyn moved toward the door.

“This recording is illegal!”

“It cannot be more illegal than your bloody dress,” I said, and for the first time I felt that my voice was no longer trembling.

My father stepped in front of her.

“Where is my sister?”

Evelyn raised her head.

“I don’t know.”

“You’re lying.”

Levan dialed a number on his phone.

“I have a doctor at Elena’s clinic. I will contact him now.”

Evelyn suddenly folded her knees.

“I did not want her to die. I only wanted to frighten her.”

“And my daughter?” My father looked toward me. “Was killing her also only meant to frighten her?”

Evelyn fell silent.

At that moment my phone made the sound of a message arriving. Only one sentence came from an unknown number: “If you call the police, your father will not make it until morning.”

My father seized on the message.

A second message arrived immediately. Along with it was a photograph—my father, who had been standing downstairs a few minutes earlier, now appeared outside the house, beside the car, in someone’s sights.

Levan looked toward the window.

A black car stood in the yard, without its headlights on.

Evelyn looked at the car for the first time and whispered in fear:

“Victor said he would need only you, Nina… but your father has already become unnecessary…”