You tell yourself you’re not paranoid.
You’re practical.
You’re a man who built an empire by reading patterns—and patterns don’t lie.
People do.
But at three in the morning, standing inside a glass mansion that throws your reflection back at you like a stranger, the silence feels wrong.
Not peaceful.
Hollow.
It started the night Aurelia died—four days after giving birth to your twin boys—and it never left.
Now it lives in the marble floors, in the echo of every step, in rooms too large for a family that shrank overnight.
You have fifty million dollars in architecture.
And nowhere safe to put your grief.
Your sons are the only movement in a frozen house.
Samuel is steady. Calm. A small lighthouse with strong lungs and easy sleep.
Mateo is the storm.
His cries come sharp and rhythmic—less fussing, more warning siren. His tiny body tightens, face flushing, eyes doing something that turns your blood cold.
The specialist calls it colic, like the word explains everything.
It doesn’t.
Every scream drags you back to hospital monitors. To Aurelia’s cooling fingers. To doctors speaking in soft tones while your entire universe collapsed.
Clara arrives like she belongs there.
Aurelia’s sister.
She wears concern the way others wear perfume—thick enough to fill the room.
She claims she’s here to help.
But she doesn’t ask about feeding schedules.
She asks about legal documents. Trust funds. Contingency plans. What happens if you “can’t handle the stress.”
When she touches the twins, her smile never reaches her eyes.
When she touches your arm, it feels like she’s testing a fence for weakness.
You can’t prove it.
But you feel it.
She isn’t circling to protect your family.
She’s circling to inherit it.
Then Lina arrives—and barely disturbs the air.
Twenty-four. Nursing student. Three jobs stitched into her week like survival.
She moves quietly. Speaks softly. Asks only for permission to sleep in the nursery so you don’t have to pace the hall every hour.
She doesn’t flinch at midnight chaos.
Doesn’t complain when Mateo screams for hours.
Doesn’t perform kindness for attention.
She just works—steady as a pulse.
Clara despises her instantly.
“She sits in the dark,” Clara says one evening, voice coated in disgust. “Lazy. Or worse. People like that steal.”
And grief makes you vulnerable.
Suspicion slides in too easily.
You tell yourself the cameras are about safety.
That’s what you repeat while the security consultant maps out “infrared angles” and “coverage zones” like it’s a military operation.
Twenty-six cameras.
Hidden in smoke detectors. Behind vents. Tucked into unseen corners.
Night vision. Cloud backup. Audio capture. Facial recognition.
One hundred thousand dollars’ worth of control.
You don’t tell Lina.
If she’s innocent, you’ll feel ashamed.
If she’s guilty, you’ll feel justified.
Either way, you’ll feel something other than grief.
And that feels like oxygen.
When the installer leaves, you stand alone in the nursery.
You scan the ceiling, the walls.
“Now I’ll know,” you whisper.
The house gives you nothing back.
For two weeks, you don’t check a single recording.
Work becomes anesthesia. Contracts and numbers replace feeling.
By day, you sign deals and shake hands with people who still see a powerful man.
By night, you drift between the nursery and the cold half of your bed—the side Aurelia will never return to.
And somewhere in the dark, the cameras keep watching.
Waiting.
So are you.
