Elena was twenty-four, a nursing student juggling three jobs. She spoke softly, blended into the background, and never asked for more money. She made only one request: permission to sleep in the nursery with the twins.

Beatrice despised her.

“She’s lazy,” Beatrice murmured one evening over dinner. “I saw her sitting in the dark for hours doing nothing. And who knows—maybe she’s stealing Seraphina’s jewelry while you’re gone. You should keep an eye on her.”

Fueled by grief and suspicion, I spent $100,000 installing top-of-the-line infrared surveillance cameras throughout the house. I didn’t tell Elena. I wanted proof.

For two weeks, I avoided the footage, burying myself in work instead. But one rainy Tuesday at 3:00 a.m., unable to sleep, I opened the secure feed on my tablet.

I expected to see her asleep.
I expected to catch her rummaging through my belongings.

Instead, the night-vision footage showed Elena sitting on the floor between the two cribs. She wasn’t resting. She was holding Leo—the fragile twin—pressed against her bare chest, skin to skin, the way Seraphina had once explained helped regulate a baby’s breathing.

But that… wasn’t the shock.

The camera captured a subtle, steady motion. Elena was rocking gently as she hummed a tune—the exact lullaby Seraphina had written for the twins before her death. It had never been published. No one else on earth should have known it.

Then the nursery door slowly opened.

Beatrice stepped inside. She wasn’t there out of concern. In her hand was a small silver dropper. She moved directly to Noah’s crib—the healthy twin—and began dripping a clear liquid into his bottle.

Elena rose to her feet, still holding Leo close. Her voice carried through the audio feed—soft, shaking, yet edged with an unmistakable command.

“Stop, Beatrice,” Elena said. “I already swapped the bottles. You’re giving him plain water now. The sedative you’ve been dosing Leo with to make him appear ‘ill’? I found the vial in your vanity yesterday.”

I couldn’t move. The tablet trembled in my hands.

“You’re nothing but hired help,” Beatrice snarled on the screen, her face twisted with fury. “No one will believe you. Alistair thinks Leo’s condition is genetic. Once he’s ruled unfit, I get custody, the estate, everything—and you disappear back to wherever you came from.”

“I’m not just hired help,” Elena replied as she stepped into the light. She reached into her apron and pulled out an old, worn locket. “I was the nursing student on duty the night Seraphina died. I was the last person she spoke to.”