Chapter 5 - THE BABY WAS NEVER INVISIBLE TO THEMI did not sleep that night.
Every time my daughter moved, I counted the seconds until she moved again.
By morning, Gabriel had doubled security.
I discovered this when I attempted to walk into the garden and found three men pretending not to follow me.
I turned.
They stopped.
I took another step.
They followed.
“This is ridiculous.”
The tallest guard looked uncomfortable.
“Ma’am—”
“I’m going twelve feet.”
“Mr. Hart said—”
I looked toward Gabriel, standing near the terrace.
“Mr. Hart can carry me himself if he wants this level of surveillance.”
Gabriel walked over.
“No.”
“Excellent. Then everyone stops treating me like a nuclear launch code.”
“You were shot at yesterday.”
“Technically, Vanessa was shot at.”
“The bullet does not provide a statement of intent.”
I hated that this was funny.
I also hated that he was right.
My attorney arrived before lunch.
Her name was Rebecca Sloan, and unlike Richard’s lawyer, she never pushed papers at me while somebody threatened jail.
She reviewed the prenup.
“The agreement itself is harsh but likely enforceable.”
I swallowed.
“So Richard wins.”
“On the assets specifically covered by it, perhaps.”
“Perhaps?”
“The NDA you signed at the courthouse is another matter.”
She held up the document.
“Your signature was obtained under obvious duress.”
“Can we void it?”
“I believe so.”
She turned pages.
Then her expression changed.
“What?”
“This isn’t only an NDA.”
I went cold.
“What did I sign?”
“A general claims release was inserted behind the confidentiality provisions.”
Alexander cursed.
Rebecca continued.
“It attempts to waive any claims you might later discover involving Sterling entities.”
“Why?”
“Normally, I’d call it aggressive divorce drafting.”
“But?”
“It specifically includes beneficial interests, inheritances, trusts, and claims arising from concealed premarital information.”
Gabriel stared.
“They knew about the Vance trust.”
Rebecca nodded.
My hands shook.
Richard had not simply wanted me silent.
He wanted a document he could later wave in court if I discovered the truth.
“Is it valid?”
“I’m going to enjoy arguing that it isn’t.”
For the first time that morning, I smiled.
Rebecca looked almost pleased.
Then a sheriff’s deputy arrived with another envelope.
Richard had filed an emergency petition involving my unborn daughter.
“He’s doing what?”
Rebecca read.
“He alleges that Alexander’s security team forcibly removed you from the courthouse and that you’re being isolated from your child’s father.”
I laughed so hard I nearly cried.
“Richard told me to sleep in a shelter.”
“Yes.”
“He threatened to have me arrested over a maternity dress.”
“Yes.”
“And now he’s concerned I’m isolated?”
Rebecca smiled thinly.
“Family litigation has remarkable creativity.”
Richard requested notification immediately upon the baby’s birth and sought temporary decision-making authority if I became “medically incapacitated.”
That phrase chilled me.
Alexander saw it too.
“No.”
Rebecca held up a hand.
“He has almost no chance of receiving that authority under these facts.”
“Almost?”
“Lawyers do not say never.”
“I’m beginning to dislike lawyers.”
“Reasonable.”
The hearing was set for the following week.
I thought that gave us time.
It didn’t.
That evening, I developed contractions.
Not labor.
Braxton Hicks, according to the doctor.
But Alexander insisted I be evaluated.
At the hospital, Gabriel complained because I refused the wheelchair.
“I can walk.”
“Hospital policy.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“It is my policy.”
“You don’t own the hospital.”
“An increasingly frustrating fact.”
I laughed.
Then immediately stopped because a woman in scrubs approached holding a clipboard.
“Maya Sterling?”
“Yes.”
“We’re transferring you upstairs.”
My obstetrician had just said I could go home.
“Why?”
“Your blood pressure.”
“It was normal five minutes ago.”
The woman smiled.
“The physician wants monitoring.”
Gabriel stepped closer.
“Which physician?”
She named someone I didn’t recognize.
Gabriel’s expression did not change.
“Identification.”
She showed a hospital badge.
He took it.
Then looked at the back.
The magnetic strip had been glued on.
Everything happened quickly.
The woman ran.
Gabriel caught her before she reached the elevator.
Hospital security arrived.
Inside the folder she carried was a forged transfer order directing me to a private clinic forty miles away.
A vehicle was waiting in the ambulance bay.
The driver disappeared before police reached it.
I sat in the examination room shaking.
Someone had tried to move me out of the hospital.
Not kill me openly.
Move me.
“Why?”
Gabriel stood near the door.
“To get you somewhere they controlled.”
Alexander’s face had become stone.
Police identified the woman three hours later.
She had worked temporary clerical jobs for several medical practices.
Two years earlier, she had been employed by a company owned through a Julian Vance shell corporation.
Richard’s name was nowhere.
For one strange minute, I felt relieved.
Then hated myself for it.
I did not want Richard to be capable of this.
I wanted him guilty of cruelty.
Infidelity.
Greed.
Not this.
That night Vanessa called Rebecca.
She wanted immunity discussions.
In exchange, she would open Richard’s private office.
Police obtained a warrant before midnight based partly on evidence already gathered.
I was not there.
Gabriel showed me photographs afterward.
Richard’s hidden room contained more than files about me.
There were letters written by his father, Thomas Sterling.
Copies of Catherine’s old Vanguard investigation.
Payments to Julian.
And one photograph I recognized immediately.
My mother’s wrecked car.
The one from the accident that killed her when I was seven.
Except someone had written across the bottom:
SECOND ATTEMPT SUCCESSFUL. C.V. CONFIRMED DEAD. CHILD SURVIVED.
I could not speak.
Alexander sat beside me.
Neither of us touched the photograph.
Thomas Sterling had known Catherine survived Black River Bridge.
He had found her years later.
He had tracked her under the name Anna Bennett.
Then she died in another car accident.
Not an accident.
My throat closed.
“Richard’s father killed my mother.”
Gabriel’s voice was careful.
“The note strongly suggests he was involved.”
“And Richard kept this.”
“Yes.”
I looked at the photograph again.
“How long?”
“His files show the box was transferred to Richard after Thomas died nine years ago.”
Nine years.
Richard had known before meeting me.
My husband had taken me to dinner knowing his father might have murdered my mother.
The room became too small.
I stood.
My daughter kicked.
I pressed my hand against her.
Then another contraction seized across my abdomen.
Harder.
Gabriel moved toward me.
“Maya?”
I breathed through it.
The pain faded.
“Fine.”
Alexander looked skeptical.
“You are not fine.”
“I am so tired of men telling me what I am.”
He closed his mouth.
Good.
Then Gabriel’s phone rang.
He listened.
“What?”
His eyes shifted toward me.
“Say that again.”
He ended the call.
I already knew I would hate whatever came next.
“What?”
“The woman who attempted the hospital transfer talked.”
“Julian?”
“She never met him.”
“Then who hired her?”
Gabriel hesitated.
“Richard’s attorney.”
I stared.
“Preston Hale?”
“Yes.”
That made no sense.
Richard’s lawyer had stood beside him while I signed the NDA.
He had helped freeze accounts.
He had threatened litigation.
But Julian?
Gabriel continued.
“There’s more.”
Of course there was.
“Hale’s father was Thomas Sterling’s personal attorney.”
The conspiracy had not started with my marriage.
It had passed from one generation to another.
And if Preston Hale was working for Julian, then Richard might not be the only person who had known exactly why I was chosen.
The people surrounding me had inherited secrets like other families inherited furniture.
Then Rebecca entered holding a warrant return.
“We found something in Hale’s office.”
“What?”
She placed an old death certificate in front of Alexander.
Anna Bennett.
My mother.
Signed by a physician named Dr. Samuel Trent.
Alexander went pale.
“You know him.”
He nodded.
“Samuel Trent was Julian’s private physician.”
My stomach dropped.
Julian had not merely known my mother survived.
May you like
He had known exactly where she died.
And that meant the man currently hiding behind Richard’s cruelty had been watching my family for almost my entire life.
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