Chapter 5 - The Midnight Visitor
The silence in the hospital room returned, heavier and more suffocating than before.
Caleb slowly lowered the phone from his ear, staring blankly at the dark screen. The ambition he had built his entire adult life around—the promotion that would have secured our future, allowed us to buy a home of our own away from Beatrice’s shadow—was slipping through his fingers like dry sand.
"They're going to drop me," Caleb whispered, sinking back down into the chair. "Six years of seventy-hour workweeks, and my mother just blew it all up because she couldn't stand the idea of me having a life independent of her."
"She didn't just blow it up, Caleb," I said, shifting slightly against the pillows, adjusting the baby in my arms. "She gave us a map."
Caleb looked up, bewildered. "A map? To what?"
"To her bank accounts," I said, my eyes hardening into a cold, focused resolve. "If Marcus wants the scandal cleaned up by noon tomorrow, we aren't going to beg your mother to delete a Facebook post. We're going to legally compel her to confess."
Before Caleb could ask what I meant, the heavy sliding door of our hospital room creaked open once more.
It wasn't a nurse. It wasn't security.
A tall man in an expensive charcoal suit stepped into the dim light of the room, holding a thick manila folder under his arm. He didn't look like a visitor; he looked like a predator entering an open pasture.
"Mr. and Mrs. Linwood," the man said smoothly, flashing a polite, humorless smile. "I'm Arthur Vance—Beatrice’s primary legal counsel. And I'm here to discuss the terms of your impending divorce settlement."
Caleb stood up so fast his chair crashed backward onto the linoleum floor.
"Divorce?" Caleb snarled, stepping between the lawyer and my bed. "Get out of this room before I throw you out through the glass."
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Arthur Vance didn't flinch. He simply opened the manila folder, pulled out a single sheet of paper, and held it out for us to see.
"Mr. Linwood, your mother has already filed an emergency petition for sole grandparent custody," Arthur said smoothly, his eyes locking onto mine with chilling amusement. "And based on the viral images currently circulating online, the family court judge has already signed an interim order to temporarily freeze your newborn son pending a court-mandated DNA test."
