Chapter 3 - Serena Smiled for the CamerasBy sunrise, Serena Montigue had already rewritten the story.
Before Victor even returned from the hospital, headlines began appearing on gossip blogs that never printed anything without payment.
BLACKWOOD NANNY UNDER INVESTIGATION AFTER INCIDENT WITH HEIR.
FIANCÉE SERENA MONTIGUE SAVES BABY FROM UNSTABLE EMPLOYEE.
POLICE CALLED TO BLACKWOOD ESTATE AFTER DOMESTIC CHAOS.
Lily saw the first article on a nurse’s phone.
The nurse quickly turned the screen away, but not fast enough.
Lily had expected fear. She had expected threats. She had not expected to become the villain before breakfast.
Her photo was there.
Not a recent one. A cropped image from a staff identification badge, taken on a day when she had rushed in late because her bus broke down. Her hair was messy. Her face looked tired. Under the article, anonymous “sources close to the family” described her as possessive, emotionally attached to the baby, and resentful of Serena’s upcoming marriage.
Lily’s hands went cold.
Victor entered the room with two coffees and saw her face.
“What happened?”
She did not speak.
He took the phone from the nurse, read the headline, and went very still.
The nurse began apologizing, but Victor raised one hand.
“It isn’t your fault.”
Then he looked at Lily.
“This is hers.”
Lily laughed once, bitter and small.
“She’s already winning.”
“No,” Victor said.
But Lily looked at the article again.
To the public, Serena was beautiful, wealthy, elegant, and engaged to one of the most powerful men in Chicago. Lily was nobody. A nanny from a rented apartment with student debt, two old suitcases, and no family name worth printing.
To the world, Serena looked believable.
That was the cruelest part.
At ten that morning, Serena held a press conference on the front steps of the Montigue Foundation.
She wore cream.
Of course she did.
Cream silk, pearl earrings, soft makeup, shaking hands. Every inch of her looked like innocence under attack.
Victor watched the livestream from Ethan’s hospital room with no expression.
Lily stood in the doorway, unable to look away.
Serena dabbed beneath one eye with a tissue.
“My only concern is Baby Ethan’s recovery,” she told reporters. “I love him as if he were my own. I cannot discuss details because this involves a child, but I will say I am devastated that someone trusted inside that home could behave so dangerously.”
A reporter asked if she meant Lily.
Serena lowered her eyes.
“I pray for everyone involved,” she said.
Lily felt sick.
Victor turned off the screen.
“She’s good,” Lily whispered.
“She’s practiced.”
“You knew?”
Victor’s silence stretched.
That answer hurt more than no would have.
“I knew Serena was ambitious,” he said finally. “I knew she liked attention. I knew she wanted my name. I did not know she would hurt my child.”
Lily wanted to ask how he could not know.
But she remembered the way Serena behaved when Victor was home. Soft voice. Gentle hands. Perfect posture beside Ethan’s crib. She would kiss the baby’s forehead when Victor watched and wipe her lipstick off with disgust when he turned away.
Serena had not fooled everyone because people were stupid.
She fooled them because she knew exactly which face each person wanted to see.
That afternoon, child protection services arrived.
So did two detectives.
Victor insisted Lily give her statement first.
Not because he wanted to control it, but because he knew Serena’s people would try to drown her voice beneath lawyers and money.
The investigator was a woman named Denise Crowley with silver hair pinned tight and eyes that missed nothing.
She sat across from Lily in a private hospital office.
“Tell me from the beginning,” Denise said.
Lily told her everything.
Not just the foyer.
The months before.
The way Serena pinched Ethan’s hand under the dining table when he reached for Lily during lunch.
The way she refused to let him nap because “crying strengthens lungs.”
The way she once locked Lily out of the nursery for forty minutes while Ethan screamed inside, then smiled when Victor called and said, “He’s just being dramatic today.”
Denise took notes without interrupting.
When Lily finished, Denise asked, “Why didn’t you leave?”
Lily’s eyes burned.
“Because he couldn’t.”
Denise stopped writing.
That was the moment she believed her.
Not because of the recording.
Not because of the bruises.
Because Lily’s first instinct was still the child.
Meanwhile, Victor returned to the mansion.
For the first time in years, the Blackwood estate was searched from attic to wine cellar.
Security servers were removed.
Phones were confiscated from staff who had been on duty.
The cook cried.
The driver swore he knew nothing.
The house manager, Mrs. Bell, insisted Serena had ordered camera maintenance that morning.
“Did you approve that?” Marco asked.
Mrs. Bell looked terrified.
“She said Mr. Blackwood had.”
Victor stood in the doorway.
“I did not.”
Mrs. Bell’s face crumpled.
“She told us you wanted privacy before the wedding,” she whispered. “She had a work order.”
Marco placed a paper on the table.
The signature at the bottom looked like Victor’s.
It was almost perfect.
Almost.
Victor looked at it once.
“Forgery.”
Mrs. Bell began to shake.
“I’m sorry, sir. I never would have—”
Victor cut her off.
“Did you see Serena near the nursery today?”
Mrs. Bell hesitated.
That hesitation told him there was more.
“Speak,” he said.
“She carried Ethan downstairs herself,” Mrs. Bell whispered. “Lily asked to take him, but Miss Montigue said the baby needed to get used to his future mother.”
Victor’s eyes darkened.
“And then?”
“Then she told everyone to prepare the east dining room for the floral designer. She cleared the foyer.”
“Why?”
Mrs. Bell looked at him helplessly.
“I don’t know.”
But Victor knew.
Serena had not lost control.
She had created privacy.
She had wanted a moment alone with Ethan and Lily.
Why?
That question followed him back to the hospital.
When he entered Ethan’s room, Lily was sitting in a chair beside the crib, one hand resting near the baby’s blanket but not touching him without permission. Ethan slept, medicated and safe for the moment.
Victor stopped at the door.
For six months, this woman had protected his son in ways he had been too blind to see.
And for six months, the woman he planned to marry had been studying the weak points in his home.
Lily looked up.
“What did you find?”
Victor closed the door behind him.
“She staged the house.”
Lily’s face paled.
“Why would she do that?”
Before Victor could answer, his phone rang.
Unknown number.
He almost ignored it.
Then he answered.
A distorted voice came through.
“Mr. Blackwood, you don’t know me. I work for the Montigue family. Serena wasn’t just trying to get rid of the nanny.”
Victor’s blood went cold.
The voice continued.
“She was trying to make the baby look unsafe in your care before the wedding.”
Victor turned toward the hospital crib.
“Why?”
A pause.
May you like
Then the answer came.
“Because after the wedding, she planned to petition for control of the child’s trust.”
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