The morning light filtered through the curtains as I sat on the edge of my bed, watching Benjamin and Uma leave together. They thought I was still wallowing in my despair, too broken to function. Let them think that. It was the perfect cover.
"We'll be back around four," Benjamin called up the stairs, his voice carrying that false note of concern he'd perfected. "The nurse will be here for Emma soon. Try to eat something, Sue."
I didn't respond. I'd learned that silence unnerved them more than anything else.
The front door closed, and I counted to sixty before moving. My body still ached from childbirth, but determination numbed the pain as I reached under the bed and pulled out the package Natalia had delivered yesterday, disguised as a care basket.
Inside were six tiny cameras, each no bigger than a button, and a set of instructions. I had exactly five hours before they returned—five hours to set my trap.
I worked methodically, starting with our bedroom. With trembling fingers, I positioned one camera in the reading lamp beside our bed, angling it to capture the entire room. Another went into the decorative vase on the dresser, and a third in the bookshelf facing the bed.
"This is my house," I whispered as I worked, the words becoming a mantra that fueled my resolve. "My life. My daughter."
I moved to the living room next, then Uma's guest room, and finally Benjamin's home office. Each camera connected wirelessly to an app on my phone, allowing me to monitor every room from anywhere. The technology felt cold and invasive in my hands—a violation of privacy I never would have considered before. But they had violated everything sacred between us first.
By the time I finished, it was nearly noon. I checked on Emma, sleeping peacefully in her nursery, her tiny chest rising and falling with each breath. Looking at her innocent face, I felt a surge of protective fury.
"I won't let them take you from me," I promised her. "Or anything else that's mine."
Back in my bedroom, I opened the app and checked each camera feed. Perfect angles, clear audio. Now all I had to do was wait.
I didn't have to wait long.
That evening, after I'd retreated to my room claiming exhaustion, I watched through my phone as Benjamin and Uma lingered in the living room, drinking wine and sitting closer than any son-in-law and mother-in-law should.
"She's completely oblivious," Uma laughed, her voice crystal clear through the camera's microphone. "Did you see her face when she caught us? Like a deer in headlights."
Benjamin chuckled, swirling the wine in his glass. "She's always been naive. Brilliant in business, but so desperate for family that she never questioned anything."
"That's my Sue," my mother said, and the casual ownership in her voice made my stomach turn. "Always looking for the family she thinks she deserved. As if I didn't sacrifice enough already."
"Well, she won't be a problem much longer," Benjamin replied, his voice dropping lower. "Once we secure the company shares, we can move forward with the rest of the plan."
I clutched my phone tighter, bile rising in my throat. What rest of the plan? What were they plotting beyond the affair?
"Come upstairs," Uma purred, running her finger down Benjamin's chest. "I want to try something."
They moved upstairs, and I switched camera views to follow them. To my horror, they didn't go to the guest room. They came to our bedroom—mine and Benjamin's.
I watched, physically sick but unable to look away, as my mother opened my closet and pulled out a cream-colored silk nightgown I'd bought for my honeymoon.
"I've always wanted to try this on," she said, holding it against her body. "Sue has such expensive taste."
"She can afford it," Benjamin replied, loosening his tie. "For now."
Uma disappeared into my bathroom, emerging moments later wearing my lingerie, the silk clinging to her body in a way that made me want to burn it afterward.
"How do I look?" she asked, twirling for Benjamin.
"Better than she ever did," he replied, pulling her toward our bed—the bed where Emma had been conceived, where I had trusted him with my heart and body.
I forced myself to keep watching as they defiled my marriage bed, recording every moment of their betrayal. Tears streamed down my face, but they weren't tears of heartbreak anymore. They were tears of rage.
After they finished, they lay in my bed, talking as casually as if they were discussing the weather.
"I can't wait until this is all ours," Uma said, gesturing around the room. "Her jewelry, her clothes, her house."
She got up and went to my vanity, opening my jewelry box and trying on my diamond earrings—a gift from my first major business success.
"These will look better on me anyway," she declared, admiring herself in the mirror.
"Everything will be ours soon enough," Benjamin assured her, watching from the bed with a predatory smile. "Her company is the real prize, though. Once I have control of that, we'll be set for life."
"And Sue?" Uma asked, her tone disturbingly light given that she was discussing her own daughter.
Benjamin's smile turned cold. "She'll be taken care of. One problem at a time."
The implication in his words sent ice through my veins. This wasn't just about an affair or stealing my company. There was something darker in his tone, something that suggested their plans for me went beyond financial ruin.
I stopped the recording, my hands shaking so badly I nearly dropped the phone. The evidence was there—irrefutable, damning proof of their affair and their intentions toward my assets. But Benjamin's last words suggested I needed to dig deeper, to uncover whatever "taking care of me" meant.
As I lay in the guest room that night, unable to sleep in my own bed after what I'd witnessed, I made a decision. I would no longer be the victim in this story. I would be the hunter, and they would never see me coming.
Tomorrow, I would call Natalia. It was time to move to the next phase of our plan.
