I secretly installed twenty six hidden cameras across my house. I was certain I would catch my nanny slacking off. By then my heart was already cold. Shaped by a multimillion dollar empire and broken by the sudden and devastating de:ath of my wife. I thought I was protecting my children from a stranger. I never imagined I was witnessing an angel fighting a quiet war against my own family.
I watched my nanny expecting to catch her “doing nothing”. Instead I uncovered a terrifying truth about my twin sons and the mother they lost.
From my penthouse, Manhattan looked like a giant, cold, and lifeless electronic circuit board. Since that tragedy – the day Claire’s Porsche plunged off a cliff in the Hamptons – I’ve become a part of that board. I run my financial empire with dry numbers and absolute skepticism.
Claire died, leaving me with seven twin sons, Leo and Max. They had their mother’s bright blue eyes, but after the funeral, those eyes seemed like frozen lakes. To focus on salvaging multi-million dollar deals, I hired Sarah – a recent education graduate with a suspiciously gentle face.
I don’t trust anyone. Especially those who pretend to be kind to my children in exchange for checks.
Absolute Control System
“Arthur, are you sure this is necessary?” – My best friend, also a security engineer, asked when he installed the 26th camera.
“I want to see every blind spot, James. I want to know what Sarah does when I’m not home. Is she lazy? Is she neglecting them? Or is she secretly stealing Claire’s things?”
This camera system was a marvel of technology. They were hidden in teddy bears, in the crevices of abstract paintings, and even in Claire’s antique clock on the fireplace. I named the system “The All-Seeing Eye.” From my Wall Street office, I could watch Sarah’s every move on my iPad screen.
For the first two weeks, I was frustrated. Sarah did everything perfectly. She cooked, cleaned, patiently read stories to Leo and Max. But the intuition of a seasoned businessman told me: The more perfect something is, the more deceitful it is.
The Terrifying Silence of the Children
On the third night of the third week, I stayed late at the office. I opened the “Eye of God” app.
It was 9 p.m. Sarah should have put the children to bed. But on camera number 14 (located in the children’s playroom), I saw Sarah sitting on the floor, her hands covering her face. She was crying. There was no sound, but her shoulders were shaking violently.
“Caught her,” I muttered. I thought she was about to collapse from stress, or perhaps she was faking it.
But then, Leo and Max entered the frame. They didn’t come to comfort her. They stood there, coldly, looking at Sarah as if she were a dying animal. Leo picked up a toy – a metal truck – and threw it hard at Sarah’s head.
Blood trickled down her forehead. But Sarah didn’t resist. She just looked up, her eyes full of pleading, and said something that the camera didn’t record. Max stepped forward, using his small hands to grip Sarah’s arm tightly, scratching and clawing.
I was speechless. My two good sons… why were they abusers?
The Truth Under the Angel’s Face
I decided not to intervene immediately. I wanted to see what Sarah would do. If she didn’t report to me, she was also an accomplice in some kind of psychotic game.
The next day, I replayed the entire recording from camera number 26 – the most secret camera, installed inside the old attic room where Claire’s belongings, which I had sealed, were kept.
At 2 a.m., Sarah entered the attic. She didn’t turn on the lights. She was carrying an old tape recorder. Then, the two children entered. They didn’t walk like normal children; they walked with a terrifying, lifeless rhythm.
I turned the volume up to maximum. A crackling sound filled the air, and then my heart stopped.
From the tape recorder, Claire’s voice rang out. But it wasn’t the gentle voice I remembered. It was a scream.
“Max! Leo! Why didn’t you obey your mother’s orders? Beat her! Beat her until she’s gone! No one can replace me!”
These were the tapes Claire had made before she died. My wife—the woman I worshipped as an angel, a talented and saintly woman—was in fact a mother with severe borderline personality disorder (BPD). She had brainwashed the children from the moment they were born, instilling in them the belief that every other woman who entered this house was a demon to be destroyed.
Sarah wasn’t a lazy maid. She discovered these tapes in the first week. And instead of running away, instead of reporting me so I could send the two children to a mental institution and destroy their future, she chose to… fight.
Climax: The Purge Night
I immediately drove home like a madman. 200 km/h on the highway.
On the iPad screen in the passenger seat, I saw a horrifying scene. Leo and Max were holding lit candles. They were surrounding Sarah in the living room. They were reenacting a “ritual” Claire had taught them: “Burning the invaders.”
“Mom said you’re a devil,” Leo’s voice boomed through the computer speakers, so cold it sent shivers down my spine. “Devils must return to fire.”
They threw the candles at the pile of curtains. Fire erupted. Sarah didn’t run. She rushed in, not to put out the fire, but to embrace the two children, shielding them from the shards of glass from the window that was cracking from the heat.
“Max, Leo
“Look at her!” Sarah yelled, her voice hoarse from the smoke. “Your mother loves you, but she’s sick.” “She’s not replacing their mother; she’s just here to love them in her place!”
I kicked the door open. Thick black smoke filled the air. I saw Sarah kneeling on the floor, her arms wrapped tightly around the two children who were frantically scratching at her. Her shirt had already caught fire.
I rushed over, using my expensive coat to extinguish the flames on Sarah. I scooped Leo and Max out, while Sarah crawled after me, still clutching the tape recorder – the only evidence to help the children escape the haunting memory of their deceased mother.
The Final Twist
After the fire truck left, I sat on the sidewalk, my face smeared with ash. My two children had been taken to the ambulance, now asleep under the sedatives.
Sarah sat beside me, her head wrapped in a white bandage. She handed me the tape recorder.
“Why?” I asked, my voice trembling. “Why didn’t you tell me?” “Why did she endure all that abuse?”
Sarah looked at me, her eyes devoid of resentment, only filled with profound sadness.
“Because I saw camera number 26, Mr. Arthur.”
I was stunned. “How did you know?”
“I’m a psychology student, not an education student. I knew you were watching. I knew that if I called the police or you immediately, you would see your children as monsters.” “He’ll send them away, and they’ll truly become demons.”
She took a deep breath, her lips, purple with smoke, curving into a bitter smile.
“And there’s another reason… something he can’t see through those 26 cameras.”
Sarah opened the small drawer of the tape recorder and pulled out a folded piece of paper. It was Claire’s suicide note she’d found in the attic, something I’d missed all this time.
I unfolded the paper. Claire’s scrawled words appeared: “Arthur, I’m sorry. I poisoned the children’s souls because I was afraid you’d forget me. I deliberately drove the car off the cliff that day because I knew I couldn’t stop tormenting them. Don’t look for a replacement, or I’ll drag you all down to hell.”
At the bottom of the paper was another small line, in fresher ink, Sarah’s handwriting: “The soul’s prison term is over.” From today, they will be children of light.
I looked at the woman I had once considered a “lazy stranger.” It turned out that, in my multi-million dollar empire, I was the most blind of all. I had installed 26 cameras to watch out for burglars, but I didn’t have a single lens to see the decay in the heart of the wife I loved, and the holy sacrifice of a stranger.
I didn’t chase Sarah away. I knelt before her, amidst the ashes of the penthouse, not as a millionaire, but as a father who had just been saved.
“Help me,” I cried. “Help me teach them to love again.”
Sarah placed her burn-covered hand on my shoulder. Outside, the sun was beginning to rise over New York, its light filtering through the broken windows, illuminating a new beginning – painful but true.
