THE CRY FROM THE NURSERY
The nursery had been designed to look peaceful.
Striped wallpaper in soft cream and gray. Warm ceiling light. A natural-wood crib standing in the foreground like the heart of the room. A tall wooden cabinet pressed against the right wall. One open doorway in the back-left corner leading into the dim hallway beyond. The wooden floor gleamed softly beneath the light, and everything looked expensive, careful, and controlled.
But none of it felt peaceful now.
Lena Hart stood beside the crib, her long black hair loose and tangled, her charcoal-gray sweatshirt wrinkled and damp at the collar from tears. Her whole body shook with broken breaths. The baby inside the crib cried loudly, wrapped safely in a white blanket printed with small gray stars.
“Please,” Lena sobbed, reaching both hands toward the baby. “Please, that’s my baby…”
Before her fingers could reach the blanket, Marissa Cole yanked her backward by the upper arm.
“Get away from that crib!” Marissa shouted.
Marissa was in her early fifties, blonde hair tied tightly back, wearing a dark gray top that made her sharp posture look even harsher. She had the stiff confidence of someone used to control. One hand clamped around Lena’s arm. The other hovered near her shoulder, ready to push again if needed.
Lena cried out and caught herself with one hand on the crib rail. Her knuckles whitened instantly.
The baby cried harder.
A small sealed envelope lay partly tucked under the edge of the baby’s star-pattern blanket near the crib rail. It was easy to miss if you were not looking for it. Marissa had seen it earlier. So had Lena.
That envelope was why the room had become a battlefield.
Lena twisted desperately back toward the crib. “You can’t do this!”
Marissa moved between her and the baby, blocking her with tense, aggressive force. “I can do whatever I have to do.”
Lena stared at her in disbelief, tears streaking down her pale cheeks. “You told him she was mine to hold. You told me I could finally see her.”
Marissa’s jaw tightened. “And you should have stayed grateful instead of snooping.”
The baby cried again, a thin desperate sound that seemed to cut straight through Lena’s chest.
She lunged forward, both hands reaching for the crib rail.
Marissa shoved her shoulder back.
“Please,” Lena choked out, voice cracking under loud sobs. “Please, that’s my baby!”
Then, from beyond the open back-left doorway, footsteps pounded against the hall floor.
Neither woman had time to turn fully before the doorway filled with a tall figure.
Owen Hart froze there for half a second.
He took in the whole scene at once.
The crying infant.
The sobbing black-haired woman bent over the crib.
The blonde older woman still gripping Lena’s arm.
The fear in the room so thick it seemed visible.
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His confusion turned to rage so fast it looked almost inhuman.
Then he moved.
