Chapter 2 - THE VOICE INSIDE THE BROKEN DEVICE
“Were you listening?”
Sebastian’s question reached Emma as a low blur.
Without her hearing aid, she could make out tone more easily than words. Years of adapting had taught her to watch mouths, shoulders, eyes.
She looked directly at him.
“Yes.”
Lauren gave a sharp laugh.
“There. She admitted it.”
Sebastian did not turn.
Emma swallowed.
“But not on purpose.”
His expression remained unreadable.
“What did you hear?”
Lauren stepped between them.
“Sebastian, this is ridiculous. She was hiding beside the music room listening to something that had nothing to do with her.”
Emma saw Lauren’s lips clearly.
Something that had nothing to do with her.
That was not what Lauren had said twenty minutes ago.
She had said Emma’s name.
Emma pointed toward the broken hearing aid.
“That.”
Sebastian looked down.
“What about it?”
“It records.”
Lauren’s face changed.
Only for a second.
But Sebastian saw it.
Emma continued.
“My audiologist activated an automatic sound buffer after I started having trouble with sudden background noise. It keeps less than a minute. Then it writes over itself.”
Sebastian crouched beside the crushed device.
Lauren recovered quickly.
“You told me it was a hearing aid.”
“It is.”
“You never said it records people.”
“I didn't know it had recorded anything until—”
Lauren moved suddenly and brought her heel down again.
Sebastian caught her ankle before it reached the floor.
The room went completely still.
He released her slowly.
“Once,” he said quietly, “could be anger.”
Lauren stared at him.
“Sebastian—”
“Twice is evidence.”
He picked up the pieces himself.
Emma watched him place them in the white linen napkin a waiter silently offered.
Then Sebastian turned toward the ballroom.
“Dinner is over.”
Nobody argued.
Within four minutes, ninety powerful people discovered somewhere else they needed to be.
Lauren followed Sebastian toward his study.
Emma stayed near the piano.
She wanted to disappear into the staff corridor, collect her coat, and leave.
Instead Sebastian stopped.
“Emma.”
It was the first time he had said her name all evening.
She looked up.
“Come with us.”
Lauren spun around.
“No.”
Sebastian’s eyes moved to her.
“No?”
“This is humiliating.”
“You crushed a medical device in front of eighty witnesses.”
“Ninety.”
The correction came from the foundation director, who immediately wished she had remained silent.
Sebastian almost smiled.
Then he looked back at Lauren.
“My study.”
Inside, the estate became unnaturally quiet.
Sebastian placed the napkin on his desk and called Mateo Russo, the man who managed Rinaldi security systems.
Mateo arrived carrying a small electronics kit.
He was broad, gray at the temples, and had the tired eyes of someone who trusted machines more than people.
Emma explained the model.
Mateo examined the crushed pieces.
“The speaker’s gone. Housing is destroyed.”
Lauren folded her arms.
“So this circus is finished.”
Mateo lifted something no larger than a fingernail.
“But the memory module looks intact.”
Lauren stopped breathing.
Sebastian noticed.
“So can you recover it?”
“Maybe.”
Mateo connected the chip through an adapter.
A progress bar appeared.
Emma sat at the far side of the study.
Her wrist hurt where Lauren had grabbed her earlier.
Sebastian noticed her rubbing it.
“Did she do that?”
Emma covered the marks.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It mattered enough for you to hide it.”
Lauren stared at Emma.
“Tell him why I grabbed you.”
Emma said nothing.
Lauren’s voice rose.
“She stole something from my room.”
Sebastian looked at Emma.
“Did you?”
“No.”
“You were in my dressing room,” Lauren said.
“I was cleaning it.”
“You opened my drawer.”
“To put away the scarf you left on the floor.”
“And then my bracelet disappeared.”
Emma frowned.
“What bracelet?”
Lauren gave Sebastian a bitter look.
“My mother’s sapphire bracelet. The only thing she left me.”
Something shifted in Sebastian’s expression.
Emma understood immediately why he had not dismissed Lauren’s accusation.
The bracelet mattered.
Lauren’s mother had died when Lauren was seventeen. Emma knew that much from staff conversations.
“I didn’t take it.”
Mateo interrupted.
“I have audio.”
Lauren went pale.
Sebastian leaned against the desk.
“Play it.”
Static filled the computer speakers.
Then a woman’s voice.
Lauren.
Clear enough that even Emma could hear part of it from the vibration and distorted sound.
“…I don't care what Rinaldi promised them.”
A man answered.
Emma recognized him.
Dr. Nathan Pierce, director of Sebastian’s charitable medical foundation.
Lauren again:
“Friday. Before Sebastian sees the Milwaukee allocation report.”
Pierce lowered his voice.
“The transfers will leave a trail.”
“Only if he knows where to look.”
A pause.
Then Lauren said the words that made Sebastian stop moving.
“Emma already saw the blue ledger.”
Emma felt cold.
Pierce answered.
“Then get rid of her.”
The recording ended.
Nobody spoke.
Sebastian slowly turned toward Emma.
“What blue ledger?”
She shook her head.
“I don't know.”
Lauren laughed once, but there was panic beneath it.
“She’s lying.”
Emma looked at her.
“I've never seen a blue ledger.”
“Yes, you have.”
“When?”
“Tuesday.”
Emma thought back.
Tuesday.
Lauren’s dressing room.
The scarf.
The open drawer.
Something blue beneath a stack of silk gloves.
She had moved the gloves to put away the scarf.
But she had never opened the book.
“I saw something blue,” Emma admitted. “I didn't read it.”
Sebastian’s jaw tightened.
Lauren pointed at her.
“There.”
“Seeing a notebook isn't stealing your bracelet,” he said.
“You think this is about jewelry?”
The anger in Lauren’s face cracked.
For the first time, Emma saw something underneath it.
Fear.
Real fear.
Lauren looked at Sebastian.
“You have no idea what your foundation has become.”
“Then explain it.”
“I can't.”
“Won't.”
“Can't.”
Sebastian stepped closer.
“Why?”
Lauren’s eyes filled, but she refused to cry.
“Because the minute I tell you, you’ll go after the wrong person.”
Mateo looked back at the waveform.
“There’s more.”
Sebastian turned.
“The recording ended.”
“The hearing aid buffer did.”
Mateo enlarged a data panel.
“But someone connected to this device remotely three days ago.”
Emma stared at him.
“No one has my hearing-aid account.”
“Somebody did.”
He opened the connection history.
A device name appeared.
SW-PRIVATE-02.
Sebastian’s face hardened.
Emma did not understand.
Lauren did.
So did Mateo.
Emma looked between them.
“What is it?”
Sebastian answered without taking his eyes off the screen.
“My private office computer.”
Emma’s stomach dropped.
Mateo clicked another line.
The remote access had not merely adjusted settings.
Someone had copied Emma’s stored audio diagnostics.
For three days.
Sebastian looked at Lauren.
“You knew her hearing aid recorded.”
Lauren whispered, “Yes.”
“How?”
Lauren’s gaze shifted toward Emma.
Then toward the closed study door.
When she finally spoke, her voice was barely audible.
“Because I wasn’t the one listening to Emma.”
May you like
She looked directly at Sebastian.
“Someone inside your house was.”
