Chapter 2 - THE RECORDING
“Of what she does to Noah whenever she thinks you’re not home.”
The words seemed to remain suspended beneath the chandelier.
Damian did not move.
Victoria did.
Barely.
A tiny twitch near her mouth.
A flicker in her eyes.
But Emma caught it.
Fear.
Real fear.
Damian shifted Noah higher against his chest.
The toddler had buried his wet face against his father’s black coat, still trembling from the force of his crying.
Damian held out one hand.
“Give me the phone.”
Emma hesitated.
Not because she intended to disobey him.
Because she understood something Victoria did not.
Once Damian watched those recordings, nothing inside this mansion would ever return to normal.
Emma placed the phone in his palm.
Victoria stepped forward.
“Damian, think about this.”
He didn’t look at her.
“She has hated me since I arrived.”
Emma’s mouth opened.
Damian lifted one finger.
Silence.
He pressed play.
At first, there was nothing but the sound of the nursery.
Rain against the windows.
Noah babbling.
The distant hum of the air conditioner.
Then Victoria’s voice.
“Stop following me.”
Noah whimpered.
The camera angle was poor.
Emma had hidden her phone between folded blankets on a shelf.
But the audio was unmistakable.
Victoria appeared near the crib.
Noah toddled after her.
She shoved him backward with one hand.
Not violently enough to send him across the room.
Just hard enough to make him fall.
Noah began crying.
Victoria rolled her eyes.
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
The Damian standing in the foyer did not react.
That frightened Emma more than rage would have.
The recording continued.
Victoria crouched beside Noah.
“You need to learn something before I marry your father.”
The toddler sniffled.
Victoria leaned closer.
“When Emma is gone, crying won’t save you.”
Damian paused the video.
Victoria spoke immediately.
“He fell.”
Damian looked at her.
She stopped.
He resumed it.
A different day.
Another hidden recording.
Noah was refusing breakfast.
Victoria grabbed the spoon from Emma.
“Leave.”
Emma’s recorded voice answered.
“He hasn’t eaten.”
“I said leave.”
“I’m responsible for him.”
Victoria laughed.
“You’re responsible for whatever Damian pays you to be responsible for.”
The recording jumped several minutes.
Emma had apparently left the phone behind intentionally.
Victoria’s voice came again.
Much quieter.
“You’re exactly like your mother.”
Damian froze.
Emma noticed.
Victoria noticed too.
Noah had been barely one year old when his mother died.
He couldn’t possibly understand the sentence.
But Damian did.
His late wife, Sofia Hawthorne, was a subject no one used casually.
The video continued.
“You both make everything harder than it needs to be.”
Victoria lifted something from a table.
A small amber bottle.
Damian paused the screen.
“What is that?”
Victoria’s face changed.
“I don’t know.”
Emma stared at her.
“You were holding it.”
“It could have been vitamins.”
Damian enlarged the frame.
The label was blurred.
But the bottle was real.
He looked at Emma.
“Have you seen it before?”
“Three times.”
Victoria snapped toward her.
“You lying little—”
Damian’s voice cut across hers.
“Finish that sentence.”
Victoria went silent.
His tone had not risen.
It had become softer.
That was worse.
Emma continued.
“The first time, I found Noah asleep at eleven in the morning.”
Damian’s eyes narrowed.
“He had slept twelve hours the night before,” Emma said. “He shouldn’t have been that tired.”
“You told me he was teething.”
“I thought he was.”
“What changed?”
Emma glanced at Victoria.
“Three weeks later, I saw her put something into his milk.”
Victoria laughed sharply.
“That is insane.”
“I asked what it was.”
“And?”
“She said pediatric vitamins.”
Emma looked back at Damian.
“But when I checked the bottle later, there was no vitamin bottle in the nursery.”
Damian lowered the phone.
For several seconds, the only sound was Noah’s uneven breathing.
Then Damian turned toward the archway.
“Vincent.”
A man appeared almost instantly.
Tall.
Gray suit.
Expressionless.
Vincent Shaw, Damian’s security chief, had worked for the Hawthorne family for almost fifteen years.
“Sir.”
“Lock the estate.”
Victoria stared at Damian.
“What?”
“No one leaves.”
“Damian—”
“No phones.”
Vincent nodded.
“Understood.”
“Collect every device from every employee.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Pull the security footage from the nursery, east corridor, kitchen, and main foyer for the last sixty days.”
Vincent hesitated.
It was almost imperceptible.
But Damian saw it.
“What?”
Vincent’s eyes shifted toward Victoria.
Then back.
“There may be a problem.”
Damian’s face hardened.
“What problem?”
“The nursery cameras have experienced several outages recently.”
Emma felt cold.
Damian spoke slowly.
“How many?”
“Eleven.”
Victoria went very still.
Damian stared at Vincent.
“Eleven accidental outages?”
Vincent said nothing.
That was answer enough.
Damian looked at his son.
Then at Emma’s phone.
Then at the woman he had intended to marry in six days.
“Who had access to disable those cameras?”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“Four people.”
“Names.”
“Myself.”
A pause.
“Your systems engineer.”
Another pause.
“You.”
Damian waited.
Vincent finally finished.
“And Miss Sinclair.”
Victoria’s composure broke.
“That proves nothing.”
Damian looked at her.
“No.”
He handed Emma’s phone back.
“But it tells me where to start.”
Victoria folded her arms.
“You’re humiliating me based on the word of an employee.”
Damian’s eyes became glacial.
“No.”
He looked down at the red mark around Noah’s arm.
“I’m questioning you because I walked into my house and watched you drag my son across the floor.”
Victoria’s lips parted.
Nothing came out.
Damian turned to Emma.
“Pack enough clothes for Noah for two nights.”
Her stomach dropped.
“Where are we going?”
“The hospital.”
Victoria stepped forward.
“He doesn’t need a hospital.”
Damian stopped.
Very slowly, he turned.
And for the first time that evening, something dangerous entered his expression.
“I didn’t ask you.”
Victoria went pale.
Damian carried Noah toward the staircase.
Then he stopped once more.
Without turning around, he said—
“Vincent.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Search the nursery.”
“For what?”
Damian looked over his shoulder.
“The bottle.”
Victoria’s face emptied.
Completely.
And Emma knew before anyone searched a single drawer that they were going to find something.
The only question was whether Victoria had been careless enough to leave behind the truth.
Thirty minutes later, Vincent walked into Damian’s study carrying a transparent evidence bag.
Inside it was a small amber bottle.
And the prescription label did not have Noah Hawthorne’s name on it.
May you like
It had someone else’s.
A child who had been dead for three years.
