Chapter 4 - The Legal Notice
Three days later, I was sitting at my small wooden kitchen table, drinking a smoothie and trying to read a chapter on pediatric emergency cardiology.
A loud knock resonated through my front door.
I frowned. I wasn't expecting any packages, and my sister wasn't scheduled to visit until the weekend.
I opened the door to find a man in a crisp charcoal suit holding a thick manila envelope.
“Dr. Adelaide Brooks?” he asked politely.
“Yes?”
“You’ve been served.” He handed me the envelope, bowed his head slightly, and walked down the apartment hallway toward the elevators.
My hands trembled as I tore open the seal.
Inside was a thick sheaf of legal parchment bearing the gold crest of Thorne, Vance & Sterling LLP—the most formidable corporate and family law firm in the state.
PETITION FOR ESTABLISHMENT OF PATERNAL RIGHTS AND SOLE PHYSICAL CUSTODY.
My breath stopped in my throat.
I turned the pages frantically, my eyes skimming through the dense legal jargon.
...WHEREAS Elias Thorne is the biological father of the unborn child... WHEREAS Dr. Adelaide Brooks works 80-hour shifts in a high-stress medical environment... WHEREAS the petitioner possesses superior financial and domestic resources to provide a stable environment... THE PETITIONER REQUESTS IMMEDIATE JOINT LEGAL CUSTODY AND FULL PHYSICAL CUSTODY UPON BIRTH...
A wave of nausea crashed over me so violently I had to grab the edge of the hallway table to keep from falling.
He was trying to take my baby.
The man who had abandoned me, the man who had claimed he didn't know how to love, was using his billions to strip my unborn child from my arms before he was even born.
Fury—hot, blinding, incandescent rage—replaced my fear.
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I didn't call a lawyer. I didn't call my sister.
I grabbed my coat, my purse, and my keys, stepped out of my apartment, and drove straight to the penthouse building on 5th Avenue that I had sworn I would never set foot in again.
