CHAPTER 8: Cameras Above the Orchestra

The foundation's security director arrived before Isadora could recover her voice.
He was a broad man in a black suit, summoned by a gesture from Elliot that most guests missed. Mira saw him and felt both hope and terror. Security had watched the house for years. Watching was not the same as protecting.
Elliot held up one page from the envelope. "The nursery cameras. Are they still archived off-site?"
The director hesitated.
That hesitation became its own confession.
"Answer me, Victor."
"Yes, sir. Thirty days. Mrs. Alden requested the visible units removed last week, but the remote archive remains intact."
The donors heard enough. Chairs shifted. Someone set down a champagne flute too hard against porcelain.
Isadora looked toward the orchestra, then the south doors, then the guests who had been praising her children's initiative twenty minutes earlier.
Mira held Leo tighter.
Elliot spoke without raising his voice. "Preserve every file. No one edits, exports, deletes, or touches a second of footage without counsel in the room."
For the first time that night, Leo stopped shaking.