Chapter 2: The Digital Trap
Elena sighed, looking at her watch. "You always ruin the structure I try to build here. If you can’t handle the responsibilities of a parent, perhaps you shouldn't be the one making the rules."
David held his children close, feeling their hearts hammering like trapped birds. He knew Elena. He knew that for months, she had been gaslighting him, making him feel like he was the unstable one. But David was a man who worked in cyber-security. He had learned long ago that people lie, but data does not.
He pulled his phone from his pocket, his fingers dancing across the screen. He wasn't checking his email or calling a doctor. He was accessing the cloud storage for the home security system—the one Elena thought she had disabled weeks ago.
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"You think you’re so smart," David whispered, his voice trembling. "You think you can play the 'perfect mother' while you treat them like obstacles. But you forgot one thing: I’m the one who installed the hardware."
He tapped a file, and a video feed began to stream. It showed the kitchen, the playroom, and the dark, hidden corners of the basement.
