Chapter 3: What the Nanny Knew
Victor crossed the foyer in four steps.
He crouched down in front of Lily — this man who made other men afraid to breathe in his presence — and he looked at Ethan's arm.
His jaw tightened.
His hand came up slowly and touched the side of the baby's face.
Ethan flinched, then stilled.
"How long?" Victor said.
He wasn't looking at Serena.
He was looking at Lily.
Lily's throat was dry.
Her ribs screamed with every breath.
"How long has she been doing this to him?"
Serena laughed.
It was a short, bright sound, completely wrong for the room.
"Victor, the child was having a tantrum.
She's being dramatic.
She's the nanny — she's supposed to manage these situations, not throw herself on the floor like—"
"I didn't ask you." He still hadn't looked at Serena.
"Lily.
How long?"
Lily held Ethan tighter.
She had rehearsed this moment in her head a hundred times over six months.
She had told herself she would stay quiet.
That no one would believe her.
That she needed the job.
That Ethan needed her to stay.
She looked at Victor Blackwood's face — really looked at it — and made her decision.
"Since the third week," she said.
"When you started traveling more."
The room went very still.
"She doesn't do it when you're home," Lily continued.
Her voice was steadier than she expected.
"She waits.
She knows your schedule.
The first time, she grabbed his wrist hard enough to leave marks.
I took photos.
She told me if I showed anyone, she'd have me deported.
I'm here on a work visa.
I didn't know what to do."
"You're lying." Serena's voice had changed.
The brightness was gone.
"Victor, she's lying.
This is exactly what I warned you about — she's been trying to undermine me since the day I moved in.
She's obsessed with you.
She fabricated—"
"Show me," Victor said to Lily.
"I have them on my phone.
In a folder.
Dated."
Serena took one step forward.
"Don't you dare—"
Victor stood up.
He turned around.
And for the first time since he'd walked through the door, he looked directly at Serena Montigue.
She stopped moving.
"You knew," he said quietly, "that I would walk through that door eventually."
"Victor—"
"You did it anyway."
"It wasn't like that.
The child was screaming, he wouldn't stop, I just—"
"You just what?" His voice didn't rise.
It dropped.
"You just dragged a fourteen-month-old boy across a marble floor by his arm."
Serena's chin lifted.
Something shifted behind her eyes — a calculation, fast and cold.
"You need me," she said.
"You know that.
The Marchetti alliance, the Geneva accounts, everything your father built — it all runs through my family's connections.
You end this, you end all of it.
Think about what you're doing."
Victor looked at her for a long moment.
Then he took out his own phone and made a call.
"Marcus.
Come to the foyer.
Bring Dr.
Reyes." A pause.
"And call my attorney."
Serena's composure cracked — just at the edges, just for a second.
"You're making a mistake," she said.
"Lily." Victor turned back.
"Can you stand?"
Lily tried.
Her legs shook.
She made it to her knees before the pain stopped her.
Victor reached down and took Ethan from her arms with a careful steadiness she hadn't expected.
He held the baby against his chest — this man who ran half of Chicago's underworld — and he held him like he was the most important thing in the room.
Because he was.
"I've got him," Victor said.
"Take your time."
Lily pressed her palm to the floor and pushed herself up.
When she finally stood, she saw Serena watching her with an expression she had never seen on that perfect face before.
It wasn't anger.
It was the first tremor of fear.
But then Serena straightened.
Her hand moved to her bag.
May you like
And Lily noticed — just barely — that she was typing something on a second phone she'd pulled from the inside pocket.
Someone was being warned.
