For two weeks, I avoided the footage, burying myself in work instead. But one rainy Tuesday at 3:00 a.m., unable to sleep, I opened the secure feed on my tablet.

I expected to see her asleep.
I expected to catch her rummaging through my belongings.

Instead, the night-vision footage showed Elena sitting on the floor between the two cribs. She wasn’t resting. She was holding Leo—the fragile twin—pressed against her bare chest, skin to skin, the way Seraphina had once explained helped regulate a baby’s breathing.

But that… wasn’t the shock.’