Chapter 3: Every Video She Thought Was Gone
Victor held out his hand.
Lily looked at it for a moment.
Then she placed the phone in his palm.
"The first video is from three weeks ago," she said quietly.
"A Tuesday.
You were in Singapore."
Victor pressed play.
The footage was shaky.
Shot from the corner of the nursery, half-hidden behind the changing table.
The angle was low, the light was dim — but everything was clear enough.
Serena walked into the nursery carrying a glass of wine.
Ethan was in his crib, standing, gripping the rail.
He made a sound — not even crying, just a small noise, the kind a fourteen-month-old makes when he wants to be picked up.
Serena set the glass down on the dresser.
Hard.
"I said be quiet."
Ethan made the sound again.
She reached into the crib and grabbed his wrist.
Yanked him sideways.
He hit the padded rail and went silent — not because he was calm, but because the shock had taken the sound out of him.
Victor stopped the video.
Nobody in the room spoke.
Rosa had her hand pressed over her mouth.
Lily was staring at the floor.
Even the air in the hallway seemed to have stopped moving.
Serena was the first to speak.
"That footage is completely out of context.
He was about to fall — I was stopping him from—"
"There are eleven videos," Lily said.
Serena went quiet.
"I numbered them." Lily's voice didn't shake.
"Eleven videos over three weeks.
I can tell you what happens in every single one."
Victor looked up from the phone.
He looked at Serena the way a man looks at something he is trying to understand — not with anger yet, but with a kind of cold, careful attention that was worse than anger.
"How long?" he said.
Lily hesitated.
"How long has this been happening?" His voice was still controlled.
Still quiet.
Still dangerous.
"Since Ethan started walking," Lily said.
"Around four months ago.
Before that she mostly ignored him.
After he started moving on his own, she—" Lily stopped.
Steadied herself.
"She didn't like that he needed more attention."
Victor set the phone down on the side table.
He didn't look at it again.
"Victor." Serena moved toward him.
"You cannot honestly believe—"
"Don't." He said it without turning around.
She stopped.
Rosa stepped forward.
Her voice was barely above a whisper.
"Mr.
Blackwood.
There's something else.
Something we didn't know how to tell you."
Victor turned to look at her.
"Three weeks ago, after the Tuesday incident — Lily went to the house manager.
Mr.
Daines.
She showed him one of the videos." Rosa paused.
"He told her to delete it.
He said Miss Serena had already spoken to him.
He said if Lily caused any trouble, her contract would be terminated and she'd be reported to the agency as unreliable."
The room shifted.
Victor's jaw tightened.
"Daines told her to delete it."
"Yes, sir."
"And she didn't."
"No." Rosa glanced at Lily.
"She made copies.
She sent them to her own email the same night.
She kept recording after that."
Serena's voice came back — sharper now, with an edge of desperation underneath the polish.
"This is a coordinated lie.
These two women have been building a case against me for weeks.
Victor, they want money.
They want to go to the press.
Can't you see what's happening here?"
Victor picked the phone back up.
He scrolled to the second video.
Pressed play.
Ethan's voice came through the speaker — small, confused, frightened.
Victor watched the whole thing without looking away.
When it ended, he set the phone down again.
He walked to the nursery doorway and looked in at his son, who was now sitting in the corner of the crib, quiet, watching the door with the particular stillness of a child who has learned that stillness is safer than sound.
Victor stood there for a long moment.
Then he turned back to the room.
"Get Daines."
Rosa moved immediately.
"And call my lawyer." He looked at Serena.
"Don't leave this house."
Serena's chin lifted.
"You're making a mistake."
"The mistake," Victor said, "was made a long time before tonight."
He walked into the nursery and closed the door behind him.
Lily stood in the hallway, her arm still wrapped around her ribs, and listened to the silence on the other side of that door.
Then her phone buzzed in Victor's hand — still on the side table where he'd left it.
She crossed the room and looked at the screen.
The message was from an unknown number.
May you like
*You should have stayed quiet.
Now you've made an enemy you can't afford.*
