“No,” I rasped, forcing the corners of my mouth to twitch upward. “Just hurry back.”
The second the door clicked shut behind him, I lunged for my phone. My hands were shaking so violently I dropped it twice onto my lap before I could unlock the screen. There was a text from an unknown number containing a single, unlisted video link.
I held my breath and pressed play.
It was twenty-seven seconds long. The footage was grainy, pulled from a high-corner security feed of a sterile, windowless anteroom somewhere deep within the hospital’s restricted maternity wing. The timestamp in the corner read three days ago—the exact time I was bleeding out on an operating table.
There stood Mark. He was completely unharmed, his posture relaxed, his hands casually shoved into the pockets of his slacks. He was standing next to a high-tech transport incubator.
Inside the incubator, swaddled in a hospital blanket, was a living, breathing newborn. My second son.
Beside Mark stood his mother, **Wendy Vance**. Wendy was a formidable, terrifying woman whose generational wealth had always served as a blunt instrument to control those around her. In the grainy video, she looked immaculate, draped in an expensive cashmere coat, her pearls catching the harsh overhead light. She didn’t look like a grandmother welcoming a new life. She looked like a CEO finalizing a hostile takeover.
“The doctors said Hailey nearly died on the table, Mark,” Wendy’s voice echoed coldly, recorded by the room’s audio feed. There was no pity in her tone, only cold calculation. “She’s far too weak to care for two boys, and frankly, she doesn’t have the pedigree to raise Vance heirs properly anyway. The private agency in Chicago has already wired the initial balance. The second half clears when he crosses state lines. Tell her the second twin was stillborn.”
I watched, my breath caught in a paralyzed, agonizing stasis in my throat. I waited for Mark to scream. I waited for the man I loved to punch the wall, to defend our family, to protect our child from this monstrous woman.
He didn’t shed a tear. He didn’t argue. He didn’t even hesitate.
