CHAPTER 1: THE ACCUSATION
CHAPTER 1: THE ACCUSATION
The nursery fell silent.
Only the baby's cries broke the suffocating stillness.
Ethan never took his eyes off his mother.
"What have you done?"
His voice was low.
Dangerously calm.
Margaret slowly pushed herself up from the wardrobe, wiping blood from the corner of her mouth.
"You think I'm the monster?" she laughed bitterly.
"You have no idea who you're protecting."
Emily struggled to sit upright.
Blood trickled from a cut above her eyebrow.
"Ethan..."
Her voice trembled.
"Please... don't listen to her."
Margaret pointed a shaking finger toward the crib.
"Ask your precious wife why she never lets anyone change the baby's clothes."
Ethan frowned.
"What are you talking about?"
"She hides him every time I come near."
Emily's face turned pale.
"It isn't what you think."
"Oh, really?" Margaret snapped.
"Then explain the birthmark."
The room froze.
Ethan looked at his wife.
"What birthmark?"
Emily closed her eyes.
She had never told him.
"When Oliver was born," Margaret continued, "I helped the nurse clean him. He had a crescent-shaped birthmark on his left shoulder."
She pointed toward the crying baby.
"Yesterday I saw that shoulder again."
"There was nothing."
Silence.
Ethan's heartbeat thundered.
Margaret's voice became colder.
"That baby isn't my grandson."
Emily burst into tears.
"I was afraid..."
"You were afraid because you've been lying since the day he was born!"
Ethan slowly turned toward the crib.
His hands trembled.
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For the first time since Oliver's birth...
Fear entered his heart.
