Chapter 2 - THE EYES INSIDE MY HOUSE
“The numbers find me.”
Theo whispered those words again, his tiny finger trembling against the polished floor beneath the piano.
I had heard grown men beg for mercy.
I had watched enemies collapse when they realized there was nowhere left to run.
But nothing had ever frightened me quite like watching a four-year-old boy try to erase his own existence with his tears.
“Theo,” I said gently. “Look at me.”
He shook his head.
“If I stop, they know.”
“Who knows?”
“The people behind the eyes.”
I followed his gaze toward the piano.
At first, I saw nothing unusual. Just polished black wood, brass pedals, and the reflection of moonlight across the floor.
Then I noticed something.
A tiny red light beneath the instrument.
It disappeared almost immediately.
I moved closer.
Someone had installed a camera inside the decorative brass housing beneath the keyboard.
Not one of my security cameras.
Something smaller.
More expensive.
And deliberately concealed.
I took a handkerchief from my pocket and covered the lens.
Theo stopped drawing.
His shoulders dropped.
For the first time since I found him, he looked directly at me.
“You made it blind.”
“Yes.”
His lower lip trembled.
“Will they be mad?”
A strange coldness spread through my chest.
“Let them be mad at me.”
He stared at my handkerchief.
Then, very carefully, he crawled from beneath the piano.
I carried him into the hallway.
He weighed almost nothing.
At the guest room, Marta appeared wearing her robe.
She took one look at Theo and whispered, “Madonna.”
“Wake the night guards,” I told her. “Quietly. Nobody leaves this property.”
Her expression changed.
“Enzo?”
“Especially Enzo.”
I hated how those words tasted.
Enzo had stood beside me for twenty-two years.
He had carried my wounded brother out of an ambush.
He had held Lily at the hospital when Isabella died and I couldn't stop crying long enough to answer the doctor's questions.
He was family.
Or so I had believed.
Marta took Theo from my arms.
The boy immediately caught her sleeve.
“Don't let them put the bracelet back.”
She glanced at me.
I nodded.
“Stay with him.”
I returned to my office and disconnected the piano camera from the house network.
Then I accessed the security system's local maintenance records.
At 2:17 a.m., an unfamiliar device had connected to my private network.
At 2:19, another.
At 2:24, six more.
Eleven cameras.
Eleven unauthorized cameras inside my home.
Every bedroom except mine had been compromised.
My daughter's room included.
I felt my heartbeat thicken.
I opened the archived access logs.
The devices had been installed during a routine security upgrade six weeks earlier.
Authorized by Enzo.
Billed through a charitable account belonging to the Isabella Valenti Children's Foundation.
I stared at my dead wife's name.
Isabella had established that foundation seven years earlier to help children who had nowhere safe to go.
She had died three years ago.
I still funded the organization.
But I had stopped attending meetings after her funeral.
Another mistake.
I selected the newest camera.
Lily's bedroom appeared.
My daughter slept beneath her pink blanket, one hand resting on the stuffed penguin Isabella had bought for her first birthday.
A stranger had been watching her sleep.
I nearly crushed the edge of my desk.
Then I noticed something in the corner of the recording.
A white label.
E08 — PRELIMINARY OBSERVATION.
I remembered the silver band around Theo's ankle.
E07.
My daughter's bedroom carried the next number.
I immediately disabled every unauthorized camera I could identify.
But before the final connection disappeared, a message appeared on my monitor.
Not a threat.
Not a ransom demand.
A scheduled entry.
SUBJECT E08: INITIAL EVALUATION — 06:00 HOURS.
Tomorrow morning.
They weren't merely watching Lily.
They were preparing for her.
I printed the screen, folded the paper, and walked toward her bedroom.
Marta stood outside the door with Theo in her arms.
He was watching the hallway.
“Theo,” I whispered. “What happens at an evaluation?”
He pressed his face into Marta's shoulder.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he lifted his head.
“They ask you questions.”
“What kind?”
“Numbers. Pictures. Things you remember.”
“And if you get something wrong?”
His little fingers tightened around Marta's robe.
“They take away your name.”
I looked through the doorway at my sleeping daughter.
“What happens after that?”
Theo's eyes filled.
“They give you a number instead.”
I looked down at the page in my hand.
E08.
Lily.
May you like
And suddenly I understood something terrible.
Someone had already decided my daughter no longer needed her name.
