Chapter 5 - THE SURGERY
Dr. Reed watched the video once.
Then she turned away.
“They altered your cervix and uterine lining to make future examinations match a catastrophic delivery.”
“Could that hurt this baby?”
“Yes.”
She did not soften the truth.
“The scar tissue increases your risk of early labor and bleeding.”
Aaron had not only stolen Lucy and Ella.
He left injuries that endangered the daughter I carried now.
I asked whether he could have repaired them during later visits.
Dr. Reed said he might have made them worse deliberately.
My scheduled appointments were never about monitoring me.
They were about maintaining control of the evidence.
Federal agents arrested Judge Thomas Vale for issuing the emergency order using falsified records.
He claimed he believed Aaron’s reports.
Bank transfers showed Sylvia’s foundation paid his personal debts.
Judge Cole continued resisting the DNA test for Lucy.
Her attorneys argued that revealing the child’s origins would cause psychological harm.
Rebecca Sloan replied that the harm began with abduction.
A federal judge ordered testing.
Before the sample could be collected, Judge Cole’s family disappeared.
Their private jet left the country.
Ella’s adoptive family also moved her from the Virginia home.
The network was evacuating the children.
Aaron and Sylvia had warned them.
Priya discovered that my phone had been transmitting location data through an app disguised as a pregnancy tracker.
She disabled it.
Minutes later, Aaron sent a message.
I KNOW WHAT ROOM YOU’RE IN.
Hospital security moved me to another floor under a false name.
Dr. Reed stayed with me.
“Why are you helping me?” I asked.
“Because I once believed Aaron.”
She admitted Aaron had trained under her fourteen years earlier.
He was charming, precise, and unusually interested in emergency fetal procedures.
A patient accused him of performing an exam without consent.
Dr. Reed reported him.
The complaint disappeared.
The patient later withdrew it.
Dr. Reed always suspected pressure.
That woman’s name was Rebecca Mitchell.
Aaron’s sister had tried to expose him long before the twins.
Dr. Reed blamed herself for not pushing harder.
I understood that guilt.
But unlike Mark, Aaron, or Sylvia, she was using it to act.
That night, Nurse Priya brought my dinner tray.
Before I touched it, she tested the water.
VX-17.
Someone had poisoned a sealed hospital bottle.
The outer cap was intact.
The contamination occurred during manufacturing.
The supplier was Vale Medical Packaging.
Sylvia’s family controlled the supply chain too.
Then the lights failed.
Backup power activated in every room except mine.
The fetal monitor went dark.
A voice came through the hallway speaker.
Aaron.
May you like
“Anna, open the door. Lucy is with me.”
A child began crying in the background.
