Chapter 3
Victor stared at the security report.
“That’s impossible.”
The supervisor rotated the tablet.
Three months earlier Victor had approved a household-access profile labeled FAMILY PRIVACY.
The profile allowed certain senior household users to suspend interior cameras for thirty-minute periods.
Victor remembered signing it.
Serena had brought it to him after complaining that engagement photographers and staff were walking through the residence constantly.
“I just want some rooms where I don't feel watched.”
Victor had barely read the form.
“Who could use the profile?”
The supervisor answered.
“You. Ms. Vale. Mr. Vale when he was registered as event security coordinator.”
Victor looked up.
Adrian.
The code belonged to Victor’s master authorization.
But Serena and Adrian had permission to trigger it.
Victor had given it to them.
That was the first real consequence.
He could no longer treat himself as someone standing outside the problem.
He had built the door.
Someone else had used it.
The security logs showed the privacy profile activating seventeen times over eight weeks.
Almost always in the nursery or adjacent playroom.
Victor looked at the dates.
“Where was Lily?”
The household manager checked staffing records.
Off duty.
Sent on errands.
At Ethan’s preschool.
Once at the pharmacy.
The absences were unusually convenient.
Then Victor saw another name repeatedly linked to schedule changes.
Serena.
She had personally asked Lily to handle outside errands on nine of those dates.
Victor went upstairs.
Lily was reading beside Ethan’s bed.
He waited until they were in the hallway.
“Did Serena send you out often?”
“Lately.”
“Why didn't you think that was strange?”
“I did.”
Victor waited.
Lily crossed her arms.
“You told me to stop questioning her authority.”
He remembered that conversation too.
Serena complained Lily undermined her in front of Ethan.
Victor told Lily that if Serena was going to become his wife, staff had to respect her role.
Lily had looked angry.
He had interpreted it as jealousy.
Now he understood what his instruction had actually done.
It removed the person most willing to question Serena.
Victor asked:
“What happened on those days?”
Lily looked toward Ethan’s room.
“When I came back, he was usually quieter.”
“Anything else?”
“Sometimes he’d ask if he was bad.”
Victor’s expression changed.
Lily continued.
“And twice he had bruises Serena said came from tantrums.”
May you like
The fracture was not the first unexplained injury.
It was simply the first one serious enough that nobody could talk around it.
