Chapter 5 - The Secret Ledger
I slammed the blue ledger shut, holding it tight against my chest like a shield.
Victoria stood in the doorframe, her eyes bloodshot from wine, but her expression holding a dangerous, predatory sharpness. In her hand, she held a wireless landline receiver.
“Put that back in the safe, Clara,” she commanded, her voice terrifyingly steady. “You have no idea what you are meddling with.”
“Who is Sarah Jenkins?” I screamed, my voice shaking with raw rage and betrayal. “Why did a surrogate give birth to my biological baby two days before I had mine? What did you do to me? What did Daniel do to me?!”
Victoria stepped into the room, closing the door behind her. She didn't look afraid; she looked disgusted, like a aristocratic matriarch dealing with a bothersome servant.
“You were never supposed to find out,” Victoria sneered quietly. “Daniel was weak. He loved you, against my better judgment. But you couldn't give him a proper heir naturally, could you? Two years of failed treatments. So I took matters into my own hands.”
The truth unfurled in my head like a nightmare. Three years ago, when Daniel and I went through fertility treatments at Oakridge Clinic—a clinic heavily funded by Victoria’s foundation—they told us our IVF embryos were non-viable. They told us we had failed.
They lied.
They harvested my eggs, fertilized them, and secretly implanted my viable embryo into a paid surrogate—Sarah Jenkins—while simultaneously staging a fake "miracle pregnancy" for me through manipulated hormonal treatments and falsified ultrasounds.
“You... you faked my entire pregnancy?” I gasped, tears boiling over my eyes. “The belly... the ultrasounds... the C-section?!”
“Oh, don’t be dramatic,” Victoria scoffed, waving her hand dismissively. “You were pregnant, Clara! We implanted a secondary, lower-grade donor embryo in you later to make sure you physically carried a child, to satisfy Daniel’s stupid sentimental request that you experience motherhood yourself. But the true Mercer heir—the pure genetic lineage of our family—was carried by Sarah Jenkins, a healthy, paid professional.”
I was sickened to my very core. They had used my body as a shell, a distraction, while raising their "perfect heir" in another woman’s womb.
“And when Sarah Jenkins gave birth two days early...” I whispered, the pieces clicking together with terrifying horror, “her baby had the crescent birthmark. She gave birth to the donor baby. And I gave birth to my biological baby two days later!”
“No, you fool,” Victoria barked. “Sarah gave birth to your biological child on the twelfth. You gave birth to the donor child on the fourteenth! But Dr. Keller made an incompetent mistake in the delivery room shuffle. He put Sarah’s baby’s wristband on the child delivered to you! The baby in the nursery upstairs—the one you’ve been holding—is Sarah’s donor child! Your real, genetically pure biological daughter was handed over to a high-paying private client hours after Sarah delivered her!”
My heart stopped beating.
My real daughter—my biological child—wasn't even in the hospital. She had been sold. Transferred. Trafficked through this disgusting, elite surrogacy ring disguised as a luxury healthcare initiative. Project Horizon.
“Where is my daughter?” I screamed, charging toward Victoria. “WHERE IS SHE?!”
Victoria reacted fast, raising the heavy landline telephone and slamming it hard against the side of my face.
Pain exploded across my temple. Sparks danced across my vision. I collapsed onto the hardwood floor, dropping the ledger.
Victoria stood over me, panting slightly, adjusting her pearl necklace. “You were always beneath us, Clara. A middle-class schoolteacher trying to play lady of the manor. Did you really think I would let you ruin our family’s legacy?”
She pressed a button on the phone. “Daniel? She knows. Bring Dr. Keller and the transport van to the house. Now.”
My sight swam in red and black. I lay on the floor, bleeding from my temple, listening to Victoria’s sharp heels clicking toward the fallen ledger.
She picked up the ledger and the USB drive, tossing them back into the safe and slamming the heavy steel door shut.
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“Don’t worry, Clara,” Victoria whispered, bending down near my ear as my consciousness began to fade. “St. Jude’s Asylum has a lovely long-term care wing. You’ll spend the rest of your life comfortably out of our sight.”
As darkness pulled me under, one thought burned through the haze of pain: I am not going to die in an asylum. I am going to tear your world to ash.
