Jary leaned in, his eyes scanning Noah’s arm. And there, half-hidden under the short sleeve of a onesie, were faint marks. A pattern that didn’t look like an accident. Finger-shaped. Too tight. Too deliberate.
His voice dropped. “What is that on his arm?”
Olivia’s shoulders tightened like she’d been bracing for that question.
“Please,” she said. “Let me put them down first.”
“Tell me,” Jary demanded, though it came out rougher now, less like a CEO and more like a father afraid of what he’d find.
“I only saw it when I picked him up,” Olivia said. “I don’t know how it got there.”
Jary’s hand went to his pocket. His phone came out like a reflex, like security could fix what his attention hadn’t.
He opened the app that linked to the penthouse cameras.
Olivia’s eyes followed his thumb moving on the screen.
“Mr. Wilson,” she said quietly, “are you checking the cameras?”
“I pay for security,” Jary said without looking up.
Olivia’s voice dropped even lower, almost a whisper. “Then check the right part,” she said.
Jary froze. His thumb stopped.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
Olivia held his stare, and for the first time her calm cracked just enough to show something underneath. Fear. Frustration. A kind of exhausted courage.
“If you watch what happened before you walked in,” she said, “you’ll understand why your sons are holding on to me like this.”
Jary’s chest tightened. He didn’t like being guided in his own house. He didn’t like being corrected by staff.
But he liked even less the marks on his baby’s arm.
He tapped the playroom camera.
Dragged the time bar backward.
The video loaded.
At first it showed a clean room: toys in bins, soft rugs, a baby gate latched. The kind of perfect, curated space he’d paid someone to design so he could pretend his sons lived in a safe world.
Then the scene changed.
Noah was on the rug, crying so hard his face was red. Eli stood at the baby gate reaching through, trembling with a tiny panic no infant should have to know.
Clare was there.
Their nanny.
She bent down, grabbed Noah’s arm, and yanked him up too roughly. Noah stumbled. Eli reached for her, and Clare slapped his hand away, not hard enough to leave a mark on camera, but hard enough to make him flinch.
Then Clare glanced toward the camera, fixed her face into a smile like she remembered she was being watched, and shut the door behind her.
She left.
The minutes kept ticking on the corner of the screen.
No one came back.
Noah cried until his whole face went wet. Eli cried too, reaching for the gate like it was the only thing between him and being forgotten.
Jary’s throat went dry.
Then Olivia ran into frame.
She went straight to them, checked their faces, lifted Noah first, then Eli. She held them close, looked toward the hallway like she expected help, and when help didn’t come, she carried them out.
Jary watched the clip once.
Then again.
And again, because his brain refused to accept what his eyes had already witnessed.
Olivia stood beside him, hands still gloved, shoulders stiff.
“Mr. Wilson,” she said softly, “I didn’t do this to cross a line. I did it because they weren’t safe.”
Jary’s voice came out jagged. “How long has this been happening?”
“I’ve only been here two weeks,” Olivia said. “But I’ve heard them cry like that before. And I’ve seen them pull away when she reaches for them.”
Heat rose behind Jary’s eyes. Not just anger at Clare. Anger at himself.
He looked down at Noah and Eli, still strapped to Olivia’s body like they were clinging to the one person who showed up.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, and the question sounded pathetic even to him.
Olivia’s chin lifted slightly. “Because you wouldn’t believe me,” she said. “Because you walked in here and blamed me first.”
Jary flinched like she’d slapped him with truth.
And she had.
He stared at his sons. He stared at the tiny marks on Noah’s arm. He stared at his phone like it had become a mirror.
“Sit,” he said hoarsely. “Put them down. Gently.”
Olivia nodded.
She moved to the couch, sat carefully, loosened straps one at a time, and eased Noah onto a pillow. Then she shifted, supported Eli’s head, and laid him beside his brother.
Both boys stayed asleep.
For a moment, their fingers still clutched at Olivia’s uniform. Then, slowly, like they were letting go of a lifeline, they released.
Jary stood over them like he was afraid to breathe wrong.
He reached out toward Noah’s hand, then stopped midair.
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