Chapter 5 - THE NURSERY TABLET
The tablet lived on a narrow shelf beside Ethan’s crib.
It controlled the nursery temperature, white-noise machine, window shades, and baby monitor.
It also belonged to Victor.
I knew because I had watched him answer emails on it during late nights when Ethan was sick.
Victor picked it up with two fingers.
“When did Graham touch this?”
“Yesterday.”
“You saw him?”
“I saw it in his hand when he came out of the nursery.”
Victor looked at me sharply.
“You didn’t tell me.”
“I thought he was checking the thermostat.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It did when I believed the people in this house belonged here.”
The words came out harsher than I intended.
Victor absorbed them without arguing.
Daniel checked the device history.
The tablet had been unlocked at 3:14 the previous afternoon.
Victor had been at Blackwood Holdings headquarters.
A second unlock happened at 3:17.
Then a corporate authentication app opened.
Victor cursed under his breath.
“What?”
“That app generates approval codes for family-office transfers.”
My skin went cold.
“You left financial access on a nursery tablet?”
“It requires my fingerprint.”
Daniel looked up.
“Normally.”
Victor’s eyes narrowed.
Daniel turned the screen around.
The device showed an alternate accessibility login had been activated two weeks earlier.
A six-digit PIN could now bypass the fingerprint for approved applications.
“Who changed it?” I asked.
Daniel checked.
“Administrator authorization.”
Victor said nothing.
We all knew what that meant.
The stolen security credentials weren’t limited to cameras.
Someone had been building ways around Victor’s controls.
Slowly.
Quietly.
Before today.
Ethan began fussing, so I carried him to the changing table.
When I reached for a diaper, my fingers brushed something taped beneath the shelf.
I stopped.
“Victor.”
He came over.
A folded sticky note had been pressed flat underneath.
Six numbers were written in black ink.
Daniel entered them into the tablet.
It unlocked the authentication app.
My heart thudded.
Victor stared at the note.
“That’s not my handwriting.”
I knew whose it was.
I had seen Serena leave grocery lists on the kitchen island.
She made her sevens with a slash through the middle.
The note had two of them.
Victor photographed it.
Then he called his attorney.
This time he placed the call on speaker.
“Elaine, I need independent digital forensics and a forensic accountant. Nobody from Blackwood Holdings.”
Elaine Shaw did not ask why.
“When?”
“Today.”
“Preserve every device.”
“We are.”
“And Victor?”
“Yes?”
“Do not confront anyone about financial specifics until we know what’s been altered.”
Victor looked toward the hallway where Serena waited downstairs.
“Too late for that.”
Elaine paused.
“What happened?”
Victor looked at Ethan in my arms.
“My fiancée put her hands on my son.”
For the first time, he said it without softening it.
Without calling it confusion.
Without searching for another explanation.
But before Elaine could respond, Daniel’s phone buzzed.
He read the message and swore.
“What?”
“Serena called 911.”
Victor went still.
Daniel looked at me.
“She told them Lily assaulted Ethan.”
Serena was no longer trying to defend herself.
May you like
She had begun her counterattack.
📖 Serena’s accusation forced me to defend myself before we could finish examining the tablet, and the first officer’s question exposed a mistake Victor had already made. 👇
