PART 2.
The click inside the wall was soft, almost delicate—but every adult in the nursery reacted as if a gun had been cocked.
Marco’s hand shot across my chest, forcing me back from the open vent.
The three red lights blinked once, together, then vanished.
From the hallway, my babies began screaming again.
And somewhere deep inside the walls of my own home, something started moving.
That was the moment I understood the truth: whoever had done this wasn’t watching my children.
They were waiting for me.
“Everybody downstairs.”
Marco’s voice had changed.
I knew that voice.
I had heard it in parking garages before ambushes, in hotel corridors before raids, and once in Marseille when a man carrying a briefcase had reached inside his coat too quickly.
It was the voice Marco used when fear had already become strategy.
Dr.
Gable stared at him.
“What exactly are we dealing with?”
“I said downstairs.”
“Marco,” I interrupted.
He looked at me.
“The babies.”
My children were still in the hallway, held by their nannies.
Theo had begun crying again, though not with the same terrified shriek as before.
Miles whimpered against his nanny’s shoulder.
Nora was strangely silent, staring past everyone toward the nursery.
Toward the open vent.
“Take them to the west guest wing,” I ordered.
“Nothing from this room goes with them.
No blankets.
No toys.
Nothing.”
The nannies moved immediately.
Elena pulled Sophie close.
But Sophie resisted.
Her little eyes remained fixed on the opening behind Theo’s crib.
“Sophie,” Elena whispered urgently.
“Come.”
Sophie pointed.
“There.”
Marco turned.
“What?”
“The man is talking again.”
Nobody breathed.
Elena’s face drained white.
“What man, baby?”
Sophie hugged her handmade doll.
“The whispering man.”
I felt something cold slide through my chest.
Marco slowly crouched beside her.
“Sophie, listen to me.
Where do you hear him?”
She pointed at the vent.
“In there.”
Dr.
Levin shook his head.
“It could be airflow.
Children can interpret mechanical noise as—”
“Quiet,” Marco said.
The doctor stopped.
We listened.
At first, there was nothing.
Then—
Static.
Very faint.
A thin electrical hiss came from somewhere inside the wall.
Marco leaned closer.
The static crackled.
And a voice whispered through the vent.
“Adrien.”
Elena screamed.
Marco ripped his pistol from beneath his jacket.
Dr.
Gable stumbled backward into a dresser.
I didn’t move.
The voice came again.
“Adrien Moretti.”
Male.
Distorted.
Calm.
My name floating from inside the walls where my children slept.
I stepped toward the vent.
Marco caught my arm.
“No.”
“Who are you?”
I asked.
Static.
Then laughter.
Not loud.
Not theatrical.
A quiet exhale of amusement.
“You took longer than I expected.”
Marco immediately signaled two guards.
“Kill the power to this floor.
Cut internet access.
Jam cellular transmissions.”
One guard disappeared.
I remained focused on the darkness.
“What did you do to my children?”
“They’re unharmed.”
“If you touched them—”
“I never needed to.”
The voice remained unnervingly calm.
That frightened me more than a threat would have.
Behind me, Sophie whispered, “He’s lying.”
The transmission stopped.
Marco looked at her sharply.
“How do you know?”
Sophie pointed toward the vent again.
“There are two.”
My stomach tightened.
“Two what?”
“Voices.”
Then the lights went out.
Total darkness swallowed the nursery.
Someone cursed.
Elena cried out for Sophie.
Marco shouted, “Nobody move!”
Emergency lighting activated two seconds later, bathing the hall in dim red.
And then came a scream.
Not from the babies.
From downstairs.
Marco and I looked at each other.
He was already moving.
We ran.
Two security men followed.
The scream came again.
Kitchen level.
I took the stairs three at a time.
My house was built like a fortress.
Twenty-seven exterior cameras.
Motion sensors.
Reinforced access points.
Private security rotating twenty-four hours a day.
I had spent millions making sure nobody could enter without my knowledge.
Yet when we reached the kitchen corridor, one of my security guards was lying unconscious on the floor.
Blood ran from his forehead.
The rear service door stood open.
Marco knelt beside him.
“Alive.”
I looked through the doorway.
Rain swept across the courtyard.
“Who opened it?”
Nobody answered.
Marco checked the guard’s weapon.
Still holstered.
“He didn’t fight.”
“Then he knew whoever hit him.”
Marco’s eyes rose to mine.
We both understood what that meant.
Someone inside my house was helping them.
A radio crackled.
“Marco.”
He grabbed it.
“Go.”
A guard upstairs sounded breathless.
“You need to see the nursery.”
We ran back.
By the time I entered, three security specialists had gathered around the ventilation opening.
One had removed another section of wall.
What lay behind it erased every remaining illusion I had about being in control.
Wires ran through the cavity.
Dozens of them.
Tiny speakers.
Miniature cameras.
Temperature sensors.
And three small black devices attached to the ventilation ducts.
Marco examined one.
“Ultrasonic emitter.”
Dr.
Levin stared.
“What frequency?”
“High enough adults might not consciously hear it.”
The neurologist’s expression darkened.
“Babies could.”
I looked at him.
“Explain.”
“Certain high-frequency sounds can cause severe distress.
Disorientation.
Panic.
Infants may react much more intensely.”
My hands curled into fists.
My babies hadn’t been ill.
Someone had been torturing them with sound.
Not enough to leave bruises.
Not enough to appear in blood work.
Not enough for doctors to find.
Just enough to make three eight-month-old children scream until their voices broke.
I turned toward Marco.
“Find them.”
“We will.”
“No.”
My voice lowered.
“Find them tonight.”
He understood.
A technician carefully extracted one of the devices.
“There’s something else.”
Attached beneath it was a memory card.
Marco looked at me.
“Offline storage.”
“How long?”
The technician connected it to an isolated laptop.
Folders appeared.
Dates.
My chest tightened.
Six months.
Whoever installed the system had been recording the nursery for six months.
Not merely recording.
Cataloging.
Theo sleeping.
Miles being fed.
Nora crawling.
Nannies changing them.
Me holding them at night.
Thousands of hours.
Then Marco clicked another folder.
His expression changed.
“What?”
He rotated the screen toward me.
There were photographs.
Not nursery photographs.
Photographs of me.
Entering restaurants.
Leaving meetings.
Standing beside cars.
Walking through airports.
Some were ten years old.
I recognized Paris.
Rome.
New York.
Milan.
Someone had followed me across continents.
Then I saw one photograph and forgot how to breathe.
It showed a woman standing outside a hospital.
Dark hair.
Gray coat.
One hand resting over her pregnant stomach.
Claire.
The mother of my children.
Taken eleven months earlier.
Two weeks before she died.
I reached for the screen.
There was a second photograph.
Claire entering a black sedan.
A third.
Claire speaking to a man whose face was turned away from the camera.
A fourth.
She was crying.
“What the hell is this?”
Marco said nothing.
I opened the final image.
Claire stood outside our home.
Someone had written a sentence beneath it.
SHE FOUND OUT.
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
Dr.
Gable quietly left the room.
Marco shut the door.
“Adrien.”
“What did she find out?”
“I don’t know.”
I turned on him.
“You handled the investigation after her accident.”
His face hardened.
“Yes.”
“You told me she lost control of the car.”
“She did.”
“You told me there was no evidence another vehicle was involved.”
“There wasn’t.”
I shoved the laptop toward him.
“Then explain that.”
“I can’t.”
It was the first time in eleven years Marco had said those words to me.
I can’t.
My mind returned to that rainy November night.
Claire leaving a charity dinner early.
Her car found crushed against a retaining barrier.
No witnesses.
No surviving passengers.
Police called it an accident.
I had accepted it because grief does strange things to certainty.
I had three premature infants in neonatal care.
A funeral to arrange.
Companies to run.
Enemies waiting for weakness.
I had never allowed myself to question the simplest explanation.
Until now.
A technician interrupted.
“Mr.
Moretti?”
I turned.
“There’s an audio file.”
“Play it.”
Marco stepped forward.
“Maybe we should verify—”
“Play it.”
The technician obeyed.
Static filled the room.
Then Claire’s voice.
My knees nearly failed.
“Adrien, if you’re hearing this…”
Her breathing was quick.
Terrified.
“…then I probably didn’t get the chance to tell you myself.”
Nobody moved.
I stared at the laptop.
Claire continued.
“I found something in your father’s records.”
My father.
Vittorio Moretti had been dead eight years.
Officially, he built Moretti International from shipping, construction, and private logistics.
Unofficially, my childhood had taught me never to ask what certain locked offices contained.
Claire’s recording continued.
“There are payments going back decades.
Medical companies.
Private clinics.
Children’s foundations.
But they’re connected to something called Project Lullaby.”
Marco frowned.
I looked at him.
He shook his head.
He had never heard of it.
Claire’s voice trembled.
“At first I thought it was money laundering.
It isn’t.”
A noise sounded in the recording.
She whispered more quickly.
“Adrien, your father wasn’t funding it.”
Pause.
“He was paying them to leave you alone.”
My blood went cold.
The audio ended.
“That’s it?”
I demanded.
The technician checked.
“Another file.”
“Play it.”
Claire again.
This recording sounded different.
She was crying.
“The triplets weren’t an accident.”
My heart stopped.
“I know how that sounds.
I know what doctors told us.
But I checked the fertility records.
Adrien, somebody altered them.”
I stared at the screen.
Theo.
Miles.
Nora.
Three tiny faces flashed through my mind.
“The clinic transferred exactly what they were instructed to transfer.
The order didn’t come from our doctor.”
Her voice cracked.
“It came from an account opened under your father’s name.”
Marco whispered, “Jesus.”
Then Claire said something that turned my fear into something deeper.
“They wanted three.”
The recording clicked off.
Nobody spoke for several seconds.
I finally managed one word.
“Why?”
The technician stared at the laptop.
“There’s one more.”
Before he could open it, the screen went black.
Every file disappeared.
“No.”
He started typing.
“No, no, no.”
“What happened?”
“Remote wipe.”
“You said the system was isolated.”
“It is.”
He looked horrified.
“This shouldn’t be possible.”
Then every television in the house switched on.
I heard them.
Bedroom screens.
Security monitors.
Kitchen display.
Even the small television in the staff lounge.
One image appeared everywhere.
A white cradle.
Empty.
Slowly rocking.
Words appeared beneath it.
THREE WERE PROMISED.
THREE BELONG TO US.
Marco swore.
I walked toward the nearest monitor.
“You want me?”
I said.
“Come get me.”
The screen changed.
LIVE FEED.
The west guest wing appeared.
My children.
All three.
Sleeping beside their nannies.
My pulse exploded.
“They have cameras there too.”
Marco was already shouting orders.
“Move the babies!
Basement safe room!
Full sweep!”
The feed followed them.
Hallway camera.
Then stairwell.
Then another room.
No matter where my security moved my children, whoever was watching changed cameras.
My entire house was compromised.
Not the nursery.
The house.
Then the screen split into nine feeds.
Garage.
Kitchen.
Office.
Wine cellar.
Guest corridor.
Security station.
East garden.
Nursery.
And—
Sophie.
The ninth camera showed Sophie standing alone in the upstairs hallway.
“Elena!”
I shouted.
Her mother spun around.
Sophie was gone.
We ran.
“Sophie!”
Elena screamed her daughter’s name until her voice broke.
Marco dispatched men in every direction.
I watched the screen.
Sophie walked slowly down the hallway with her doll.
Not frightened.
Following something.
She stopped in front of a wall outside my late father’s study.
A wall with no door.
Then she pressed her ear against it.
The camera feed zoomed closer.
Impossible.
Whoever controlled it was watching her.
Sophie lifted her tiny hand.
And knocked.
Three times.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
A section of wall moved.
A hidden door opened.
I stared.
I had lived in that house since I was twelve years old.
I had never known it existed.
We reached Sophie moments later.
She stood before a narrow staircase descending into darkness.
Elena grabbed her.
Sophie didn’t resist.
I turned to Marco.
“Did you know?”
“No.”
I drew the pistol I kept beneath my jacket.
Marco looked at me.
“Adrien, we clear it first.”
“It’s my house.”
“That’s exactly why you shouldn’t go first.”
I started down anyway.
He cursed and followed.
The staircase descended farther than it should have.
Twenty steps.
Thirty.
Forty.
Concrete replaced marble.
The air became cold.
At the bottom stood a steel door.
No lock.
No keypad.
Only a symbol engraved into the metal.
Three circles inside a larger circle.
I had seen it before.
I just couldn’t remember where.
Then Sophie whispered behind us.
“On the doll.”
We turned.
She held up her handmade doll.
Elena frowned.
“Sophie?”
The same symbol had been stitched beneath its dress.
Three small circles.
One large circle.
My heart pounded.
“Where did you get that doll?”
Sophie looked confused.
“Mama gave it to me.”
Every face turned toward Elena.
She froze.
“No.”
“Elena.”
“I didn’t make that.”
Sophie frowned.
“Yes, Mama.”
Elena shook her head violently.
“No, sweetheart.
Mrs.
Bell made it for you.
Remember?
From the church donation box.”
“When?”
I asked.
Elena looked at me.
“About six months ago.”
Six months.
The exact period covered by the nursery recordings.
Marco took the doll carefully.
He squeezed the body.
Something clicked inside.
He tore one seam.
A small electronic component fell into his palm.
Tracker.
Elena gasped.
“Oh God.”
But Sophie crouched.
Something else had fallen out.
A tiny brass key.
She picked it up.
Before anyone could stop her, she stepped toward the steel door.
The key fit.
The lock opened.
Marco pulled Sophie back.
Then he opened the door.
Lights flickered on automatically.
I entered.
And found my childhood.
Photographs covered the walls.
Me at four.
Me at seven.
Me at twelve.
Medical records.
Blood samples.
School reports.
Psychological evaluations.
My father’s signatures appeared everywhere.
At the far end of the room stood three cribs.
Old ones.
Dust-covered.
Above them was a photograph of three boys.
Identical.
One was my father.
Vittorio.
The second boy had died when he was five.
I knew his name.
Luca.
But the third—
I had never seen him before.
Below the photograph were three names.
VITTORIO MORETTI.
LUCA MORETTI.
MATTEO MORETTI.
I stepped closer.
“Marco.”
He came beside me.
“My father never had a brother named Matteo.”
A speaker in the ceiling crackled.
Then the distorted voice returned.
“No.”
I looked upward.
“He had two.”
A light switched on behind a glass wall.
There was a chair.
A table.
And a man sitting calmly in the darkness.
Silver hair.
Dark suit.
My father’s face.
Older.
Thinner.
But unmistakable.
For one impossible second, I thought I was looking at a ghost.
Then the man smiled.
“My name is Matteo.”
I could barely speak.
“You’re his brother.”
“His surviving brother.”
My gun rose.
Marco raised his too.
Matteo didn’t flinch.
“You tortured my children.”
“No.”
“The devices—”
“Were meant to wake them.”
“Wake them?”
“To frequencies they recognize.”
“You’re insane.”
“Perhaps.”
He stood.
“But your father thought the same thing when they did it to us.”
I stared at the three childhood photographs.
“What is Project Lullaby?”
Matteo smiled without warmth.
“A family tradition.”
Behind him, another screen illuminated.
Genetic charts.
Three columns.
Theo.
Miles.
Nora.
“You engineered them,” I whispered.
“We completed what your father interrupted.”
Rage burned through me.
I aimed directly at his chest.
“Give me one reason not to shoot you.”
Matteo looked past me.
Toward Sophie.
“She already knows.”
I turned.
Sophie was staring at the three old cribs.
Her expression was distant.
Listening again.
Then she said quietly:
“There’s a baby crying.”
Elena hugged her.
“There are no babies down here.”
Sophie pointed toward the far wall.
“Yes, there are.”
Matteo’s smile vanished.
For the first time, he looked afraid.
Marco noticed it too.
“What’s behind that wall?”
Matteo said nothing.
I moved toward him.
“What is behind the wall?”
Then we heard it.
A baby crying.
Faint.
Real.
From somewhere deeper underground.
One cry.
Then another.
Then another.
Three voices.
My blood froze.
My children were upstairs.
All three.
So whose babies were beneath my house?
Matteo backed toward the glass.
“That isn’t possible.”
The lights began flashing.
Red.
An alarm sounded.
A mechanical female voice repeated:
“SUBJECT TRANSFER COMPLETE.”
Marco grabbed my shoulder.
“We need to move.”
“Transfer of what?”
Matteo slammed his hand against a control panel.
“No.
No, she wasn’t supposed to activate yet.”
“She?”
I grabbed him by the collar through the opening door.
“Who?”
He looked at me.
And suddenly, the man who had calmly admitted to manipulating my children looked terrified.
“Claire.”
The world stopped.
I tightened my grip.
“My wife is dead.”
Matteo stared directly into my eyes.
“No, Adrien.”
Then every monitor in the underground room switched on.
A hospital room appeared.
White walls.
A woman sat with her back to the camera.
Dark hair falling over her shoulders.
My heart forgot how to beat.
The woman slowly turned.
Claire.
Older.
Paler.
Alive.
She looked into the camera as if she could see me.
Then she whispered:
“Adrien, don’t let them bring the triplets to me.”
The feed cut to black.
Above us, somewhere inside the mansion, three babies began screaming at exactly the same time.
And Sophie whispered the words that would haunt me for the rest of the night.
“Mr.
Moretti… those aren’t your babies crying.”
…If you want to know what happened next, please type “YES” and like for more.
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Source: Stories of Destiny · Thao Thao
