Chapter 42 - The Ghost in the Records
The nursery upstairs remained quiet, but every fiber of my being was screaming.
"A girl," I choked out. The air in the room felt thick, unbreathable, like water filling my lungs. "A six-year-old girl."
Six years ago. The memory slammed into me with the force of a freight train.
I was twenty-six. Scott and I had been engaged for only four months. I had collapsed on the bathroom floor of our apartment with excruciating abdominal cramps and heavy bleeding. I remembered the blinding headlights of the ambulance, the sterile white ceiling of a private clinic in New Jersey—a facility Scott insisted on because his 'family friend' was the chief of obstetrics.
I remembered waking up from general anesthesia, groggy and empty. Scott was sitting by the bed, weeping theatrical tears, holding my hand and telling me our daughter had suffered catastrophic placental abruption. He told me there was no heartbeat. He told me the clinic had handled the cremation so I wouldn't have to bear the trauma of a funeral.
For six years, I had mourned that phantom baby. When I carried the triplets—when Scott mocked my swollen ankles, my leaking breasts, and the adult diapers I was forced to wear after an emergency triple-cesarean—I had silently offered my pain as penance for the child I thought my body had failed to protect.
"He stole her," I whispered, the words scraping out of my throat like shattered glass. "He didn't just hide a child. He took my baby from my body and told me she was dead."
Marcus didn't try to offer empty platitudes. He stepped forward and placed both hands firmly on my shoulders. "Listen to me, Lauren. If this is true, we cannot go in blind. Victor Sterling may be facing indictment, but his network hasn't completely collapsed. St. Jude’s isn't an ordinary hospital. It’s an ultra-private, long-term pediatric care facility for elite families who want medical issues kept off the public record."
"Why would Scott keep her alive?" I demanded, tears finally breaking free, hot and furious down my cheeks. "If he wanted to eliminate my claim to the trust, why not let her die? Why pay millions to keep her in a facility for six years?"
"Leverage," Marcus answered without hesitation. "Your grandfather's trust has a specific bloodline clause. If you died without surviving issue, your assets were supposed to revert to Victor Sterling's holding syndicate. But if a living child existed—one whose legal guardianship Scott controlled—Scott held the keys to the entire Vance estate, regardless of what happened to you."
"And the triplets?"
"Insurance," Marcus said darkly. "When your grandfather added the codicil, he suspected something. Scott needed more heirs to dilute any outside legal challenge, or he needed you completely incapacitated by the sheer burden of carrying triplets so you would sign power of attorney over to him. Remember the paperwork he shoved in front of you while you were still bleeding in the recovery room?"
I remembered. Scott had placed a thick blue legal folder on my hospital tray while my hands were shaking from the spinal block. He had told me it was medical consent forms for Liam’s incubator care. I had signed it blindly, barely able to keep my eyes open, while he smirked and whispered that I was pathetic for needing adult diapers at thirty-two.
"Marcus, we're going to Westchester," I said, wiping the tears from my face. My voice was no longer trembling. The broken woman who had cried on the bathroom floor was dead. The mother in me had taken the wheel.
"You can't just walk into St. Jude's, Lauren," Marcus warned. "The facility has private security. If Scott’s legal team realizes we know about the girl, they could transfer her out of state before we even cross the county line."
"Then we don't go as visitors," I said, walking briskly toward the hallway closet and grabbing my coat and car keys. "My name is on that birth record. My blood is in her veins. Scott Hastings used my pain to build his empire. I am going to tear down every wall he built around my daughter."
Just as I reached for the doorknob, my phone buzzed on the entryway console.
It was an unknown number with a local area code. Marcus gave me a cautious look, signaling for me to put it on speaker.
I swiped the green icon. "Hello?"
"Lauren?" A raspy, familiar voice came through the speaker. It was hoarse, filtered through the static of a prison phone system.
It was Scott.
May you like
"I know Marcus is with you," Scott said, his voice devoid of the arrogance he usually wore like armor, replaced by a frantic, jagged desperation. "Don't go to St. Jude’s, Lauren. If you step foot on that property, Victor's people will execute the custody surrender. You’ll never see Clara alive again."
***
