For two hours the nursery was pure chaos. Bottles, baths, rocking, changing — nothing worked. Then little Sophie in the yellow lace dress stepped onto the rug.

Adrien’s eyes narrowed instantly. He signaled Marco, who immediately pulled up the live feeds from the estate’s outer perimeter security grid.

"Zoom in on the north gate highway," Adrien commanded.

Marco adjusted the high-definition pan-tilt cameras monitoring the public access road half a mile away. Hidden beneath the dense pine canopy was a dark SUV with tinted windows. The vehicle had gone undetected because it sat outside the property line, but its position aligned perfectly with the sightlines of the nursery wing.

"They have spotters positioned outside," Marco said, his jaw tightening. "They’re watching for your motorcade to leave for the hospital."

"They're waiting for an ambulance," Adrien realized. "When Vance reported that the infants were in distress, Vincent’s team prepared a strike team to intercept us en route."

Adrien turned to Sophie, kneeling down to her eye level. "Sophie, did you see those men yourself?"

"I saw them through the pantry window when Mommy was making tea," Sophie replied, pointing toward the north wing of the mansion. "One man had a big black camera with a long glass tube."

Adrien looked up at Marco. "They are using optical surveillance to confirm our movements. We give them exactly what they want to see."

Within thirty minutes, Adrien orchestrated a decoy operation. Two black medical transport vans were ordered to arrive at the main gates with sirens flashing. Dressed in civilian clothing, several security officers carried covered stretchers out of the side entrance, creating the illusion that the triplets were being rushed to the city hospital under heavy escort.

As the decoy convoy sped away from the estate with half of Marco’s security detail following, the dark SUV outside the north gate pulled out to stalk them.