Chapter 3 - THE CAMERA THAT SHOULDN’T EXIST At 2:17 a.m., Eleanor stopped crying.
She sat inside a cheap hotel room twenty miles from Manhattan, still wearing the clothes she had worn when Julian threw her out.
Rain crawled down the window.
Her marriage might be finished.
But Leo was still inside that house.
With Maria.
Eleanor opened her laptop.
Something about Maria’s performance bothered her.
Too perfect.
Then she remembered the nursery camera.
Julian believed it had been disabled during the latest security upgrade.
It hadn’t.
Months earlier, Eleanor secretly reconnected it to an encrypted cloud account so she could watch Leo sleep while traveling.
Her hands shook as she entered the password.
The screen loaded.
11:43 p.m.
Maria entered the nursery carrying Leo.
Eleanor fast-forwarded.
Then stopped.
Maria deliberately squeezed Leo’s leg.
The baby screamed.
Eleanor appeared on-screen seconds later.
Then Maria scratched her own cheek against the corner of a cabinet.
Eleanor covered her mouth.
“Oh my God.”
She kept watching.
After Eleanor had been expelled, Maria returned.
She approached the crib.
Then she looked directly into the hidden camera.
Not accidentally.
Directly.
As though she knew Eleanor would eventually watch.
Maria smiled.
“The Sterling bloodline ends before sunrise.”
Eleanor’s blood turned cold.
She grabbed her phone.
Called Julian.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
She called the estate.
Disconnected.
Security.
Disconnected.
Then the camera feed vanished.
Eleanor stood.
Her fear disappeared beneath something harder.
A mother’s certainty.
Julian had thrown her into the rain believing he was protecting their child.
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Instead—
he had handed Leo directly to his assassin.
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