Chapter 7 - Glass and Silver
The corridor opened up into a massive, circular atrium that looked less like a medical facility and more like a high-security corporate boardroom designed by a paranoid technocrat. In the center of the room stood a curved glass partition overlooking a sprawling, sterile nursery filled with rows of high-tech automated cribs.
My breath caught in my throat.
Through the thick, soundproof glass, I saw dozens of tiny infants resting under the soft blue glow of monitoring lights. Some were sleeping peacefully; others were tended to by nurses wearing unmarked, slate-gray scrubs instead of standard medical whites.
And standing right in the middle of the nursery floor, reviewing a digital clipboard, was Dr. Harrison.
He had changed out of his St. Jude Memorial lab coat into a sharp, dark cashmere sweater, looking entirely relaxed, like a CEO inspecting a newly acquired inventory warehouse.
I pressed myself flat against the outer wall of the glass partition, my fingers gripping the edge of a metal fire-alarm housing as rage flared hot and bright in my chest.
A side door near the nurse’s station clicked open, and a man stepped into the nursery holding a sleek, leather-bound portfolio. Even from a distance, I recognized the tailored charcoal suit and the sharp, silver-rimmed glasses.
It was the same man who had come to my hospital room at midnight to collect the forged custody waiver from David.
“The transport from the downtown courier just cleared the intake bay,” the man in the charcoal suit said, his voice carrying clearly through an intercom speaker wired into the outer wall. “Everything is logged under the secondary trust. The endowment funds from the Mercer medical expansion have already hit the foundation’s offshore accounts.”
Dr. Harrison smiled—a cold, self-satisfied smirk that twisted his respected features into something truly grotesque. “And the mother?”
“Sedated heavily at St. Jude’s,” the man replied, adjusting his glasses. “By the time she wakes up and realizes the death certificate was filed, the infant will have a new passport, a new identity, and a one-way ticket to a private adoption syndicate in Zurich. Clean, untraceable, and permanent.”
My vision blurred with a red mist of pure fury. They weren't just selling my child; they were erasing her entirely, turning human lives into commodities traded by men in expensive sweaters and tailored suits.
“Good,” Harrison murmured, turning toward one of the automated cribs near the far wall. “Let’s finalize the export manifest. The buyer’s private jet is scheduled to depart from the private airstrip at dawn.”
As Harrison reached down to pick up a baby from the crib—a tiny bundle wrapped in a pale blue blanket—something inside me snapped. All the caution, all the careful planning, all the instinct to hide and gather evidence evaporated in an instant.
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I stepped away from the wall, marched straight up to the security keypad beside the main glass door, and slammed my fist against the emergency override button.
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