Chapter 15 - Before The Baby Comes
The hospital locked the maternity floor before our car stopped moving.
Police met us at the emergency entrance.
My contraction hit halfway through the metal detector.
I grabbed the wall.
Dr. Patel appeared from nowhere.
“No.”
“I’m fine.”
“You are having contractions.”
“I’m seven months pregnant and my husband is somewhere in your hospital.”
“Which is exactly why you are going upstairs under guard.”
She put me in a wheelchair.
I hated it.
I went anyway.
Two officers pushed ahead.
Ramos walked beside me.
“Nathan used a stolen employee badge to enter through the loading dock.”
“Where is he now?”
“We lost him near the private consultation wing.”
“Dr. Reed?”
Ramos’s jaw tightened.
“Missing from police custody.”
I turned toward him.
“What?”
“An officer transporting Reed was assaulted in the parking garage.”
Of course.
Nathan wasn’t hiding.
He was collecting loose ends.
We reached maternity.
Charles and Victoria were stopped downstairs by police.
Dr. Patel attached a monitor in a private room.
The baby’s heartbeat came strong.
I breathed through another contraction.
“Not labor yet,” she said. “But stress is not helping.”
My phone buzzed.
A message from Nathan.
CONSULT ROOM 4. COME ALONE OR REED DIES.
I showed Ramos.
He took the phone.
“We handle this.”
A second message appeared.
AND THEN I START TALKING ABOUT THE BABY.
I stared at it.
Ramos saw my face.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
That was a lie.
I had seen something months earlier.
A fertility-clinic invoice Nathan told me was a billing error.
We had never used a fertility clinic.
I had forgotten it because pregnancy had come naturally after a year of trying.
Or I thought it had.
Ramos ordered officers toward Consultation Room 4.
I stayed behind.
For twenty seconds.
Then the fire alarm went off.
Red lights flashed.
Doors released automatically.
Nurses shouted.
Patients began moving.
The officer outside my room looked down the hall.
That was all Nathan needed.
A hand clamped over my mouth from behind.
I slammed my elbow backward.
Nathan grunted.
He dragged me through the service door.
I bit his palm.
He cursed and shoved me into an empty consultation room.
The door locked.
Dr. Reed sat tied to a chair in the corner, blood running from his eyebrow.
Nathan held a syringe.
My back hit the wall.
“You touch me and every recording Victoria made goes public.”
Nathan smiled.
“They’re already public enough to ruin me.”
“Then what do you want?”
“My company.”
“It was never yours.”
His smile disappeared.
“It should have been.”
“Your father built it.”
“My father buried me under every woman he trusted more than me.”
“Rebecca?”
His jaw tightened.
“You?” he said. “Especially you.”
He stepped closer.
I kept one hand behind my back and opened the recorder app Rebecca’s video had told me to use.
One tap.
Recording.
Nathan didn’t see.
“You married me for my father’s shares.”
“I married you because you were useful.”
The words cut cleanly.
No drama.
No apology.
I almost preferred it.
“You stole from me.”
“Yes.”
“You forged my signature.”
“Yes.”
“You drugged me.”
His eyes flicked toward Dr. Reed.
“I made you manageable.”
Reed twisted against the chair.
“You said nobody would get hurt.”
Nathan slammed the syringe into the table beside him.
“Shut up.”
I stared at the clear liquid.
“What is that?”
Nathan pulled the syringe free.
“Something that buys me time.”
Outside, boots pounded down the corridor.
Nathan caught my arm.
I drove my bandaged hand into his throat.
He stumbled.
I grabbed the chair and shoved it between us.
“Emily!” Ramos shouted from outside.
Nathan kicked the chair aside.
He seized my wrist and twisted.
The recorder kept running in my pocket.
I gasped through the pain.
“You won’t hurt your own child.”
Nathan stopped.
His grip loosened.
For one strange second, he almost looked amused.
He glanced at my stomach.
Then at me.
“Emily…”
The syringe rose between us.
May you like
“Who told you the baby was mine?”
He drove the needle toward my arm—
