Chapter 3
THE CHILD HE PLANNED TO STEAL
No one spoke.
Natalie’s confession seemed to hang in the air between us.
The detective was the first to recover.
“Ms. Mercer, you need to return to the interview room.”
Natalie shook her head desperately.
“No. She needs to know why.”
My grandfather stepped beside me.
“What does your pregnancy have to do with my granddaughter?”
Natalie looked at him, then lowered her eyes.
“I was already pregnant when Dominic and I began the affair.”
“By whom?” the detective asked.
“My former fiancé.”
“And does he know?”
“He died six weeks ago.”
Her voice broke on the final word.
For one brief moment, I saw grief beneath the expensive dress and perfect makeup.
Then I remembered her smile as Dominic called my children runts.
Compassion did not erase accountability.
Natalie wiped her face.
“My fiancé, Caleb, worked for Dominic’s company. He handled supplier contracts.”
The detective took out a notebook.
“What was Caleb’s last name?”
“Rowan.”
The hospital attorney looked sharply at my grandfather.
“I know that name.”
“So do I,” my grandfather said.
Caleb Rowan had been listed in the audit records as the manager who approved several suspicious vendor payments.
Natalie continued.
“Caleb discovered that Dominic was inflating invoices. He confronted him. Dominic threatened to blame everything on him.”
“What happened next?” the detective asked.
“Caleb copied the records. He said he was going to federal investigators.”
Her hands began shaking harder.
“Two days later, he died in a car accident.”
The detective’s expression changed.
“Was the accident investigated?”
“They said he lost control in the rain.”
Natalie looked at me.
“I found the copied files after the funeral. Dominic came to my apartment before I could decide what to do.”
“And you began sleeping with him?” I asked.
She flinched.
“No. That had already started.”
The honesty was ugly, but at least it was honest.
“I was angry at Caleb,” she said. “He worked constantly. He kept secrets. Dominic made me feel important. By the time I discovered the fraud, I was already pregnant and Caleb was dead.”
“So Dominic offered to protect you,” my grandfather said.
Natalie nodded.
“He said the investigators would blame Caleb and me. He said the shell company in my name could send me to prison.”
“Could it?” the detective asked.
She looked down.
“Yes.”
There it was.
Natalie had not been an innocent victim.
She had accepted money.
Signed documents.
Helped Dominic steal.
But then she said something I did not expect.
“He told me Audrey’s pregnancy was failing.”
My breath caught.
“He said the twins would not survive. He said Audrey was mentally unstable and planned to accuse him of fraud. He said he needed to act before she destroyed all of us.”
I felt my grandfather’s hand close around the back of my chair.
Natalie looked at the medication vial.
“I saw that in his briefcase last week. He told me it was Audrey’s prescription.”
“Did you see him alter it?” the detective asked.
“No.”
“Did he tell you he planned to harm Mrs. Vale?”
“No. I swear.”
“Then why did you come to the hospital today?”
Her face crumpled.
“Because he told me she had agreed to the divorce.”
I almost laughed.
“Did the woman in the hospital gown look like she had agreed?”
Natalie’s eyes filled with shame.
“He said she would be emotional. He said we had to show her there was no future with him.”
“You enjoyed it.”
She said nothing.
“You wore my coat.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You touched your stomach while he insulted my children.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You smiled.”
Tears spilled down her face.
“Yes.”
The admission was quiet.
“I wanted to win.”
I looked through the window behind her.
Inside the NICU, a nurse adjusted the blanket over Liam’s tiny body.
Win.
That was what Dominic had turned our lives into.
A competition between women.
A contest for housing, money, status, and attention.
While he stole from both of us.
While two babies fought to breathe.
I turned back to Natalie.
“What did he promise you?”
“A house. Marriage. Security for my baby.”
“Whose name was the house supposed to be in?”
She hesitated.
“His.”
“And the accounts?”
“His.”
“Did he ask you to sign anything?”
Her face changed.
The detectives noticed.
“What did he ask you to sign?” one of them repeated.
Natalie pressed a hand to her mouth.
“A medical power of attorney.”
“For whom?”
“For the baby.”
My grandfather’s eyes narrowed.
“Before the child was born?”
“He said it was for emergencies.”
“What else?”
“A guardianship declaration.”
My skin went cold.
Natalie looked at me.
“He said that if something happened during the birth, he would raise the baby.”
The detective leaned forward.
“Did the declaration identify Dominic as the biological father?”
“Yes.”
“Even though he was not?”
“Yes.”
Dominic had planned to claim Natalie’s child.
Perhaps to create the healthy family he believed would improve his image after my twins died.
Or perhaps because a grieving widower with a newborn would attract sympathy while fraud investigators closed in.
The detective stepped out to make a call.
Natalie sank into a chair.
“I thought he loved me,” she whispered.
I felt no satisfaction.
Only exhaustion.
“So did I.”
My grandfather looked toward the door.
“Where are the files Caleb copied?”
Natalie stared at the floor.
“Dominic thinks he destroyed them.”
“But?”
“I have a backup.”
Every person in the room went still.
“Where?” the hospital attorney asked.
Natalie glanced at the detectives.
“I want protection.”
“You are asking for a deal,” my grandfather said.
“I’m asking for my child not to pay for what I did.”
My grandfather’s expression remained hard.
“Children often pay for the choices of adults. My great-grandchildren are doing it right now.”
Natalie closed her eyes.
“I know.”
She removed a delicate gold bracelet from her wrist.
With trembling fingers, she pressed the clasp.
A tiny memory card fell into her palm.
“Caleb gave me this the week before he died.”
The detective returned just as she placed it on the table.
“It contains contracts, recordings, and bank records,” Natalie said. “Including a conversation between Caleb and Dominic.”
The detective sealed the memory card in an evidence envelope.
“What was discussed in the recording?”
Natalie looked directly at me.
“Dominic said he needed Audrey’s investment accounts.”
My stomach twisted.
“He said he could not access them unless she died or signed them over.”
The room became silent again.
The divorce papers.
The forged report.
The altered medication.
The emptied accounts.
They were not separate betrayals.
They were one plan.
A plan that had failed because I survived.
A knock sounded at the door.
Dr. Park entered quickly.
My heart stopped at the expression on her face.
“What happened?”
“It’s Chloe.”
I was already turning my wheelchair.
Dr. Park guided me through the NICU doors.
The room filled with controlled movement.
Nurses surrounded Chloe’s incubator.
Her oxygen levels had fallen suddenly.
A respiratory therapist adjusted the machine beside her.
I could barely see my daughter beneath their hands.
“Please,” I whispered.
Dr. Park crouched beside me.
“We are helping her breathe. Stay where she can hear your voice.”
Hear my voice.
I moved closer.
My hands shook as I reached through the incubator opening and touched the sole of Chloe’s foot.
It was smaller than my thumb.
“Mommy is here,” I whispered.
The monitor alarm continued.
“You are not alone.”
My voice broke.
“Your brother is here. Your great-grandfather is here. There are nurses everywhere who already love you.”
The oxygen number rose slightly.
Then fell.
I pressed my forehead against the incubator.
“You do not have to prove anything to anyone, Chloe. You do not have to be strong for me.”
Tears blurred my vision.
“You only have to stay.”
Minutes stretched into something endless.
Then the alarm changed.
The numbers began climbing.
One point.
Then another.
The respiratory therapist looked at Dr. Park.
Dr. Park nodded.
“She is responding.”
My knees would have collapsed if I had been standing.
The entire room seemed to breathe with me.
A nurse placed one hand against my back.
Chloe’s oxygen level continued rising.
Not perfectly.
Not safely enough to relax.
But upward.
She was fighting.
Outside the NICU, security officers moved quickly toward the elevators.
Dominic had been arrested.
I did not see them place him in handcuffs.
I learned later that he shouted my name through the corridor.
He demanded to see his children.
He accused my grandfather of buying the police.
He told everyone I was unstable.
No one listened.
The divorce folder, the bank transfers, the forged documents, the altered medication, and Natalie’s memory card had become part of the investigation.
Before they took him away, Dominic asked to speak to me.
I refused.
Not because I feared him.
Because Chloe was holding my finger.
And for the first time in our marriage, Dominic was not the most important person in the room.
Three days later, I received a call from the district attorney.
The laboratory had confirmed the medication had been altered.
Dominic was charged with financial fraud, identity theft, forgery, and attempted aggravated assault.
Additional charges could follow after the investigation into Caleb Rowan’s death.
Natalie entered a cooperation agreement.
She surrendered the stolen money held in her accounts and agreed to testify.
She was not free from consequences.
But she would not disappear before telling the truth.
I thought the nightmare had finally reached its worst point.
Then my grandfather entered my hospital room carrying a sealed envelope.
His face was pale.
“What is it?” I asked.
He placed the envelope in my hands.
“The DNA results.”
I stared at him.
“What DNA results?”
My grandfather sat down slowly.
“The hospital ran routine compatibility testing because the twins may need blood products.”
A strange heaviness entered the room.
He continued.
“There is an inconsistency in Dominic’s medical records.”
I looked toward the NICU.
“No.”
“Audrey—”
“No.”
My fingers trembled as I opened the envelope.
The report contained names, percentages, and clinical language.
But only one sentence mattered.
Dominic Vale was excluded as the biological father of both children.
I stared at the page until the words blurred.
“That’s impossible.”
My grandfather said nothing.
“I never cheated on him.”
“I know.”
“Then the test is wrong.”
“The hospital repeated it.”
My pulse thundered in my ears.
“If Dominic isn’t their father, then who is?”
My grandfather’s expression held something deeper than shock.
Recognition.
“Audrey,” he said carefully, “before your pregnancy, did Dominic ever insist on handling your fertility appointments?”
The memory came back at once.
After a year of trying to conceive, Dominic had taken me to a private fertility clinic owned by one of his business associates.
He had arranged every consultation.
Signed every form.
Spoken to every doctor.
I had trusted him.
My grandfather reached for my hand.
“The clinic closed six months ago.”
“Why?”
“Federal investigators were examining falsified records and unauthorized embryo transfers.”
The room tilted.
My babies had been conceived after a fertility procedure.
Dominic had told me the embryo was created from our genetic material.
But if that was not true…
I looked through the glass at Liam and Chloe.
My children.
No report could change that.
Still, one question tore through me.
“Whose babies did I carry?”
My grandfather lowered his voice.
“We found the name of the donor whose genetic profile matches the twins.”
I forced myself to look at him.
He placed a photograph beside the DNA report.
A man in his early thirties smiled from the image.
He had kind eyes.
Dark hair.
And a familiar dimple in his left cheek.
The same dimple Liam had shown once while sleeping.
I looked at the name beneath the photograph.
Dr. Nathaniel Reed.
“He is alive?” I asked.
May you like
My grandfather nodded.
“And he has been searching for two missing embryos for nearly a year.”
