Chapter 3: The Crackle of Truth
Chapter 3: The Crackle of Truth
From the antique wooden sideboard sitting quietly in the corner of the dining room, a sudden burst of static filled the air.
It was the baby monitor.
It had been a highly publicized, expensive gift from Margaret just weeks after the pregnancy was announced.
A top-of-the-line, luxury monitor with an encrypted 4K camera and enhanced audio, installed in the nursery before the baby was even fully developed.
Margaret had claimed, with a warm, grandmotherly smile, that it was strictly for safety. To ensure the estate security team could monitor the room.
Olivia had thanked her profusely for the generous thought.
She had never mentioned to anyone that she sometimes carried the parent receiver downstairs during dinners. She liked to turn it on just to hear the faint, soothing lullabies playing from the mobile in the empty nursery where she had spent hours folding tiny white clothes all by herself.
She had not expected it to catch her husband upstairs before dinner.
The static cleared abruptly.
Jason’s own recorded voice—captured just twenty minutes ago when he said he needed to make a quick business call—suddenly filled the cavernous dining room.
“The baby is mine. I already know that. But if Mom keeps blaming Olivia, I can move the offshore money before she figures out about Vanessa.”
No one breathed.
No one dared to move a single muscle.
The sound from the tiny, high-definition speaker hung in the air like thick, toxic smoke, suffocating the entire Bennett family.
Margaret’s sharp, arrogant expression instantly emptied into a hollow, uncomprehending stare.
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Jason went white so quickly his lips looked grey, the blood rushing entirely out of his face.
Olivia’s breath hitched in her throat as she slowly turned her body toward the small, glowing monitor screen on the sideboard.
