Ficorpio
Chapter 1
Every time I changed clothes, I had the strange feeling someone was watching me. Even in the shower, the water spraying over my skin seemed to carry another person’s gaze.
Then, today, I found the first pinhole camera on top of the wardrobe.
I didn’t call the police right away.
Instead, I hired a professional counter-surveillance team.
Inside our marital apartment, they found more than ten hidden cameras.
The phone number linked to the devices appeared, unbelievably, under Vanessa Cross’s name.
On December 28, Mark Sterling posted in the family group chat:
“For New Year’s Eve, everyone come to our place. Fifty people or so. Claire will cook.”
I stared at the message for a long time.
Then I typed one word.
“Sure.”
For the past six months, I had been convinced there was something wrong with me.
This apartment had been renovated entirely by Mark’s parents as our newlywed home. The deed had only one name on it—Mark’s.
I lived here, but not for a single day had it ever felt like my home.
It always felt as though a pair of invisible eyes were hiding in the dark, studying me.
That feeling became especially sharp whenever I changed clothes.
More than once, I stood in the shadow of the wardrobe and suddenly felt a chill crawl up my spine.
I told my husband, Mark.
He laughed and said I was being ridiculous, that I’d watched too many horror movies.
I said, “I’m clearly standing in my own home. What am I supposed to be afraid of?”
Afraid of what?
At the time, I didn’t know either.
Until last night.
I had just finished my shower. Wrapped in a towel, I walked out of the bathroom.
Steam from the shower blurred the mirror and filled the room with damp warmth.
Out of the corner of my eye, I looked up and saw something behind the decorative trim at the top of the wardrobe—a tiny black dot, no bigger than a pinhead.
My heart plunged straight down.
I climbed onto a chair, reached up with shaking hands, and used my phone’s flashlight to look closer.
The black dot was barely visible, hidden so carefully that if I hadn’t caught it at that exact angle, I never would have noticed it.
There was no sound in the apartment.
Mark was away on a business trip. He wouldn’t be back for three days.
In the apartment, there was only me.
And that black lens aimed at the foot of the bed.
I forced myself to calm down.
Then, all at once, old fragments began to surface—little things I had never taken seriously.
Vanessa Cross had once called me out of nowhere and “accidentally” laughed about the color of the underwear I had just bought.
Chapter 2
Mark had claimed he was swamped with work and slept separately from me for several days. That same week, Vanessa called in the middle of the night to ask whether the pajamas he had bought me were comfortable.
At the time, I had only thought Vanessa was vulgar and had no sense of boundaries.
Now, every one of those scattered, obscene little details threaded together into a rope and tightened around my throat.
I didn’t sleep that night.
Early the next morning, I took a personal day from work.
I didn’t tell anyone. I found a professional counter-surveillance inspection firm and made an appointment.
The technicians arrived carrying toolboxes and professional equipment.
My voice was hoarse when I spoke.
“Please help me check every room.”
“Of course, ma’am,” the lead technician said. “We’ll start in the bedroom.”
The moment the equipment was switched on, the bedroom erupted in shrill electronic beeps.
The first hidden camera was the one I had found, tucked at the top edge of the wardrobe.
The technician used tweezers to pull out a tiny black pinhole camera no larger than a fingernail.
My blood ran cold.
“There’s another one here.”
The second was embedded inside the wall trim near the bathroom door.
Its lens pointed directly toward the shower area.
“Here too.”
A third was hidden in the frame of the television, stuck behind a small decorative panel.
The team moved from the bedroom to the living room.
Then to the study.
Then to the kitchen.
Then even to the planter on the balcony.
One after another, the hidden cameras were found.
Finally, the lead technician stopped in front of the wardrobe in the walk-in closet.
“Ma’am,” he said, his expression tightening, “the signal response here is very strong.”
I walked over stiffly.
There was a thin layer of dust on top of the wardrobe.
Underneath it, stuck to the back panel with double-sided adhesive, was a black device about the size of a matchbox.
It was a signal transmitter and storage unit.
Beside it was another hidden camera connected to a micro memory card.
The tenth one.
The technician connected the device to his computer.
“Ma’am, this equipment is remote-access enabled,” he said. “There should be a receiving terminal.”
Not long after, a record appeared on the screen.
Under the list of connected terminals was a phone number.
I only glanced at it once.
It was a number I knew far too well.
Vanessa Cross.
Vanessa, Mark’s so-called close cousin.
I stood there, and for a moment it felt as if every drop of blood in my body had frozen.
The technician looked at my pale face and asked carefully, “Do you need us to call the police for you?”
I shook my head.
When I spoke, my voice was soft, but colder than it had ever been in my life.
“No.”
“Keep looking.”
“I want to know exactly what these dozen little eyes have been watching.”
Claire Bennett sat alone on the living room sofa.
Chapter 3
On the coffee table in front of her lay more than a dozen hidden cameras, arranged in neat rows, and a thick surveillance inspection report.
On the last page, printed in black and white, was the phone number linked to the devices.
The evidence was overwhelming.
Claire did not cry. She did not lose her temper and smash everything in sight.
She was unnaturally calm.
All the grievances, unease, and disgust she had swallowed over the past three years finally had an answer.
So that was why, every time she argued with Mark Sterling, his mother could call within minutes, furious and precise, accusing Claire of being unreasonable.
So that was why every little thing inside this apartment somehow reached the Sterling relatives, right down to the angle from which they could criticize whether she was capable of keeping a home.
So that was why she had always felt as if she were living inside a glass box, exposed from every side, stripped of even the smallest privacy.
Because all this time, she had been trapped in a live feed running twenty-four hours a day.
This was not her home.
This was a cage the Sterling family had built for her, complete with cameras in every corner.
Claire laughed softly.
She picked up her phone and opened Mark’s chat.
She wanted to ask him, Why?
Her finger hovered over the screen, then stopped.
No.
She could not confront him yet.
What she wanted was not a worthless apology. It was not even simply to make things hard for Mark.
She wanted every person involved in this rotten little arrangement to pay the price.
Every. Single. One.
Claire took a breath and placed a call.
“Rachel,” she said when the line connected. “I need your help.”
Rachel Whitmore had been her college classmate. Now she was a well-known attorney who specialized in privacy violations and marital property disputes.
After Claire explained the hidden cameras and the phone number at the other end, Rachel was silent for a long time.
“Claire,” she said at last, her voice very careful, “are you certain this points to Mark’s mother?”
“I’m certain the surveillance inspection report is legitimate. I’m certain the inspection firm has full records.”
Rachel paused. “And your husband? Does Mark know?”
Claire thought of Mark’s face—that gentle, indulgent smile he wore whenever he stood between her and his family and somehow always chose them.
“If he knows the details, then he was part of it,” Claire said. “If he doesn’t, then he allowed it. Either way, in this marriage, he has always stood on their side.”
Her voice cooled further.
“Whether he knew or not isn’t the important part anymore.”
Rachel understood.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll take the case. From this moment on, what do you need me to do?”