Chapter 3 - The Matriarch's Threat
Three days after the emergency C-section, I was allowed into the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit for the first time.
The NICU was a quiet, dimly lit room filled with rows of glass incubators. I sat in a wheelchair pushed by Nurse Sarah, my surgical stitches aching with every small turn.
Inside Incubator 6 lay my daughter. She was tiny, her skin smooth and delicate, her chest rising and falling beneath the rhythmic gentle hiss of an oxygen cannula. Monitored wires were attached to her chest, but her tiny fingers were curled tightly into a fist.
"Do you want to hold her?" Sarah asked softly.
I couldn't speak; I just nodded through a thick wave of tears.
Sarah carefully lifted the small bundle, wrapping her in a warm yellow blanket, and gently placed her against my chest. Skin to skin.
As I felt her tiny heart beating against mine, a profound, unbreakable strength flooded my entire body. All the fear, all the years of shrinking myself to fit inside David’s cruel world, evaporated. I looked down at her dark, fine hair.
"Your name is Lily," I whispered, pressing a soft kiss to her tiny forehead. "And no one is ever going to hurt you again. I promise."
Later that afternoon, after I was wheeled back to my recovery room, the door opened without a knock.
Victoria Vance stepped inside.
David’s mother was a woman carved from ice and tailored silk. She wore an expensive pearl necklace, her gray hair styled in a flawless chignon, and carried a leather designer handbag. Despite being banned from the NICU, she had somehow bribed her way past the floor desk to reach my room.
She stood at the foot of my bed, looking down at me with an expression of disgust, as if I were dirt tracked onto her expensive rug.
"Elena," Victoria said, her voice smooth, icy, and completely devoid of warmth. "You look dreadful."
"Get out of my room, Victoria," I said, my voice quiet but rock-solid.
Victoria scoffed softly, pulling a white envelope from her handbag and dropping it onto my blanket. "Don't play the brave victim with me, dear. You’ve brought enough shame to the Vance family name for one lifetime."
"Shame?" I laughed bitterly. "Your son slammed me into a metal checkout counter over a fourteen-dollar blanket! He almost killed your granddaughter!"
Victoria didn't even blink. "David was under an immense amount of stress due to your reckless spending. He lost his temper. It was unfortunate, but men of his stature have pressures you couldn't possibly comprehend."
I stared at her in absolute disbelief. "He beat me! He framed me for federal fraud!"
"He did what was necessary to protect this family's legacy," Victoria snapped, leaning over the bed, her face inches from mine. "Now, listen to me very carefully, Elena. Inside that envelope is a agreement. You will sign over full sole custody of the child to me. You will sign a statement recanting your allegations of assault against David, stating you tripped and fell at the store."
"And if I refuse?"
Victoria smiled—a terrifying, predatory curve of her thin lips. "If you refuse, I will release the complete financial trail bearing your signatures to the press. I will hire ten law firms to drag you through bankruptcy court until you can't afford a meal, let alone a lawyer. I will have you deemed an unfit, mentally unstable mother, and you will spend the next twenty years in a federal penitentiary while I raise that child in my estate."
She tapped her long, manicured fingernail against the white envelope.
"You have twenty-four hours to sign, Elena. Or I will destroy everything you have left."
Before I could answer, the door swung open violently.
Wyatt stepped into the room, holding a heavy cardboard box filled with baby clothes and supplies he had bought for Lily. He took one look at Victoria standing over my bed, dropped the box onto a chair, and stepped between us.
"You have five seconds to turn around and walk out that door," Wyatt said, his voice dropping into a register that vibrated through the floorboards. "Before I personally throw you out of this building."
Victoria looked at Wyatt’s massive frame, her icy composure faltering for a fraction of a second. "Do you know who I am, you giant brute?!"
"I don't care if you're the Queen of England," Wyatt growled, stepping forward until his shoulder blocked her view of me entirely. "You're trespassing on a federal witness's room. Agent Brody is down in the lobby right now. Should I call him up?"
Victoria’s jaw tightened. She snapped her handbag shut, glared at me over Wyatt’s shoulder, and spat, "Twenty-four hours, Elena. Choose wisely."
She turned on her heel and strutted out of the room.
May you like
I reached for the white envelope on the bed, my hands shaking—not with fear, but with absolute, burning rage.
"Wyatt," I said, looking up at him. "Call Clara Mercer. Tell her we’re going to war."
