“Paige?” I prompted.
When she finally spoke, her voice broke into a jagged, wet sob. It wasn’t the sound of shock; it was the sound of a decades-old dam breaking.
“She… she used to do things like this to me,” Paige whispered, the words tumbling out of her in a rush of buried agony. “When I was a teenager. When Dad wasn’t around. She would break things and make me clean them up while she mocked me. She’d withhold food. She told me I was crazy… Travis, she convinced me I made it all up in my head. I thought I was insane.”
Tears prickled the corners of my eyes. The monster hadn’t just been born; she had been residing in our family for years, hiding behind her pristine reputation.
“You’re not crazy, Paige,” I said fiercely. “She is exactly what you thought she was. But right now, Brooke is bleeding and crying in that room, and my son is in that woman’s arms. I want to go in there and tear the house down, but if I do, it’ll be a war zone. I need to get them out safely first.”
Paige sniffled loudly, the sound of her crying abruptly hardening into something resembling steel. The realization of the truth was morphing into furious clarity.
“Tell me what you need me to do, Travis. Tell me exactly what to do.”
“I’m calling a locksmith right now,” I outlined, my logistical brain firing on all cylinders. “I need you to drop whatever you are doing and drive to my house. You have a key. You are going to go in there, act completely normal, and you are going to get Brooke and Jonah out of that house. Use any excuse. Tell Mom you booked Brooke a surprise doctor’s appointment, or a postnatal massage. Just get them to your car and drive away.”
“What if she tries to stop me?” Paige asked.
“She won’t,” I assured her. “Mom cares too much about her public image. She won’t risk looking like a monster in front of you. She thinks she still has you fooled. Play on that.”
“And what are you going to do?”
I looked at the iPad screen. Brooke was currently trying to lower herself from the chair, weeping, her hands reaching toward the broken glass, while my mother stood over her, bouncing a screaming Jonah with a look of sadistic triumph.
“I’m going to make sure she never steps foot in our lives again,” I said.
I hung up and immediately dialed the emergency line for a commercial locksmith I used for my warehouses. I offered him triple his emergency rate to be at my home address in fifteen minutes. He agreed.
Then, I sat in the car, my eyes glued to the screen, watching the seconds tick by in agonizing slow motion. Every sob that racked Brooke’s body felt like a physical blow to my chest. I watched her trembling fingers pick up the scattered pills, trying to avoid the shards of glass. My mother watched her like a queen watching a peasant grovel.
Ten minutes passed. Twelve.
Then, on the audio feed, I heard the sharp chime of the front doorbell.
My mother’s head snapped up. Instantly, the cruel sneer vanished, replaced by a look of mild, pleasant surprise. She adjusted her posture, smoothed down her cardigan, and walked out of the nursery, taking my crying son with her.
The trap was set. Now, I just had to pray the extraction worked.
On the screen, Brooke was left alone on the floor. She had managed to gather the pills, but her hand was bleeding slightly from a tiny sliver of glass. She looked utterly defeated, staring at the empty doorway where my mother had vanished with her child.
Downstairs, I could hear the muffled sounds of the front door opening. Through the sensitive microphone of the hidden camera, the voices drifted up the stairs.
“Paige! Darling, what a wonderful surprise!” Lorraine’s voice was sickeningly sweet, vibrating with manufactured delight. “We weren’t expecting you! Come in, come in, look at your beautiful nephew. He’s just a little fussy today.”
“Hi, Mom,” Paige’s voice replied. It was remarkably steady, though I, knowing my sister, could hear the razor-thin tension humming beneath the surface. “He looks perfect. Actually, I can’t stay long. I’m here to steal Brooke for a bit.”
“Steal Brooke?” Lorraine’s voice lost a fraction of its warmth. “Oh, honey, I don’t think that’s a good idea. She is very weak today. Very fragile. She hasn’t even managed to get dressed. She really needs to rest.”
“That’s exactly why I’m here,” Paige countered smoothly, her footsteps echoing as she began to walk up the stairs, forcing Lorraine to follow. “I have a friend who runs an upscale postnatal spa. She had a last-minute cancellation and offered it to me for free. They specialize in postpartum recovery. It’ll be great for her. And I’m taking Jonah, too. My friend wants to meet him, and it’ll give you a break, Mom. You’ve been working so hard.”
Brilliant, I thought, gripping the iPad. Play to her ego.
“Well…” Lorraine hesitated at the nursery door.
Paige pushed past her, stepping into the frame of the hidden camera. She took one look at Brooke—on her knees, bleeding hand, surrounded by shattered glass and water—and I saw Paige’s jaw lock so tight I thought it might shatter. But she didn’t break character.
“Brooke! Oh my goodness, what happened here?” Paige asked, her voice laced with fake, oblivious concern.
“I… I dropped the water,” Brooke stammered, terrified to look at Lorraine.
“Oh, you clumsy girl,” Lorraine chimed in, leaning against the doorframe, still holding Jonah. “I told her to just rest, but she insisted on trying to do things herself.”
Paige didn’t look at our mother. She immediately knelt down, wrapping an arm around Brooke’s waist, and gently hauled her to her feet.
“Don’t worry about the mess, Mom, I’ll clean it up later,” Paige said. “Right now, Brooke is coming with me. We have an appointment in twenty minutes. Come on, Brooke, I’ve got some comfortable clothes for you in the car.”
Brooke looked confused, dazed by the sudden rescue. “But… Jonah…”
“I’ll take him,” Paige said. She turned to Lorraine, stepping directly into her personal space, and held out her arms. The air in the room seemed to freeze. For a terrifying second, I thought Lorraine was going to refuse. I thought she was going to tighten her grip on the baby and drop the facade.
But Paige stared her down with a look of absolute, unyielding defiance—a look I’m sure my mother had never seen from her before.
“Give me the baby, Mom,” Paige said, her voice dropping an octave, carrying a subtle, undeniable threat. Do not make a scene.
Lorraine blinked. The social calculus ran through her head. To refuse would be weird, possessive, and unexplainable. Slowly, reluctantly, she handed Jonah over to Paige.
“Well,” Lorraine sniffed, adjusting her cardigan. “If you insist. Make sure he stays warm. And Brooke, really try to pull yourself together today.”
“We’ll be fine,” Paige said. She guided Brooke out of the room, cradling Jonah against her chest.
I listened as their footsteps receded down the stairs. I heard the front door open, and then, the heavy, metallic click of it shutting behind them.
My phone buzzed immediately. A text from Paige: We are in the car. We are safe. Do it.
A breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding escaped my lungs in a rush. They were clear. The hostages were out.
I looked back at the iPad. Lorraine was standing alone in the nursery. She looked around the empty room, her expression shifting from pleasant to deeply annoyed. She looked at the spilled water and the glass. She let out a heavy, dramatic sigh of martyrdom, shook her head, and turned to walk out of the room.
It was time.
I reached down to the iPad screen and tapped the small microphone icon to activate the two-way audio.
“Don’t bother cleaning that up, Mother.”
My voice boomed out of the small hidden speaker on the bookshelf, echoing loudly in the quiet nursery.
Lorraine jumped violently, letting out a sharp yelp. She spun around, her eyes wide, scanning the room frantically for the source of the sound. She looked at the main camera on the wall, the one she had unplugged, her face pale with confusion.
“Travis?” she asked, her voice trembling slightly. “Where… where are you?”
“I’m sitting in my car, three blocks away,” I said. My voice was devoid of any emotion. It was the voice I used when a supply chain collapsed and I had to terminate a toxic vendor. Cold. Final. “I’ve been watching you for the last hour, Lorraine.”
She froze. The blood drained completely from her face. She looked at the bookshelf, finally spotting the small digital clock. The realization of what it was hit her like a physical blow. She took a step back, her hands flying to her mouth.
Then, the survival instincts of a narcissist kicked in. She immediately tried to spin the narrative.
