Part 3: The Digital Ledger
Part 3: The Digital Ledger
I didn't answer him.
I grabbed Lily, pulled her into my bedroom, and locked the solid oak door behind us.
"Sarah?" Ryan’s footsteps stopped outside. "Why is the door locked? Is everything okay in there?"
"We're just getting ready for bed, Ryan," I said, forcing my voice to sound level, using the calm language I had learned to fake after my first husband died.
I sat on the edge of the mattress, opened my laptop, and plugged the camera's memory card into the side slot.
As a former data analyst for the regional compliance office, I knew how to read hidden directory trails.
The drive didn't just contain recordings from the bathroom.
It contained a secondary folder labeled CLOUD_REMOTE.
Ryan had been streaming the live video feed directly to an external server registered under a shell corporation in Delaware.
The corporation was owned by his mother, Teresa.
The woman who had always smiled too sweetly at our wedding, whispering that her son deserved a traditional wife, not a widow with a broken bank account.
They were systematically gathering data to file for full psychological custody of Lily, planning to use her nightmares and bed-wetting as proof that I was an unfit mother.
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They wanted the insurance payout from my late husband's accident—the three hundred thousand dollars sitting in a protected educational trust.
"Sarah," Ryan said again, his knock on the door sounding firmer this time. "Open the door. You're acting dramatic."
