Chapter 2 - The Delivery Room
Ryan read the message twice.
Then he locked the phone.
“Who sent that?” I whispered.
“I don’t know.”
The paramedics rushed into the kitchen before he could say more.
Everything became noise.
Questions.
Equipment.
Hands.
A blood-pressure cuff tightened around my arm.
A medic placed a fetal monitor against my stomach.
“Twin pregnancy, thirty-four weeks?”
“Thirty-five tomorrow,” I said.
“Any bleeding?”
“No.”
“Contractions?”
“Yes.”
“How far apart?”
“I don’t know.”
Ryan crouched beside me.
“Four minutes.”
I looked at him.
“You timed them?”
“Since I walked in.”
The medic nodded.
“Good.”
Brianna stood near the staircase.
Patricia remained beside the island.
Neither woman came closer.
A second paramedic noticed the papers scattered across the counter.
Then the phone under the cabinet.
Then the red marks forming along my arm.
“What happened here?”
I looked at Ryan.
His jaw tightened.
“My sister attacked my wife.”
“Ryan!” Patricia snapped.
He didn’t look at her.
“She was assaulted while eight months pregnant.”
The paramedic’s expression changed immediately.
“Police have been requested.”
Brianna turned.
Patricia grabbed her wrist.
“Don’t.”
Ryan looked up.
“You leave before the police arrive, and I will make sure they know you ran.”
Brianna stared at him.
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand enough.”
The medic secured me to the stretcher.
Ryan stood.
“I’m going with her.”
“Of course.”
As they rolled me toward the door, I caught Patricia watching the pantry camera.
Her eyes had found it.
Too late.
The ambulance ride became a blur of contractions and questions.
Ryan sat beside me holding my hand.
“You were supposed to be in Singapore.”
“I finished early.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wanted to surprise you.”
Despite the pain, something inside me broke.
A laugh.
A sob.
I couldn’t tell which.
“That was a terrible surprise.”
His eyes filled.
“I should’ve been here.”
“No.”
“I should have.”
“You couldn’t know.”
“My sister—”
“Ryan.”
He looked at me.
“Don’t blame yourself for what someone else chose to do.”
That was the accountant in me speaking.
Facts.
Liability belonged where liability belonged.
But Ryan wasn’t listening like a businessman.
He was listening like a husband who had walked into his home and found his pregnant wife on the floor.
At the hospital, doctors moved quickly.
Fetal monitors.
Ultrasound.
IV fluids.
Medication.
A nurse cut away part of my dress to examine bruising.
Ryan looked away.
Not because he didn’t want to see me.
Because he couldn’t bear what he saw.
Dr. Elena Foster entered.
She was an obstetrician from my practice.
“Sarah, both babies have strong heartbeats.”
I started crying.
Ryan bowed his head against my hand.
“But,” Dr. Foster continued, “you are in active labor.”
“How active?”
“Four centimeters.”
I stared.
“That fast?”
“With twins at this stage, trauma can accelerate things.”
Ryan’s expression hardened at the word trauma.
“Can you stop it?”
“We can try to slow labor, but given what happened, there are circumstances where delivery is safer.”
“For them?”
“For all three of you.”
Ryan squeezed my hand.
“Do whatever you have to.”
Dr. Foster looked at me.
“Sarah?”
“Yes.”
That one word felt like surrender.
But not defeat.
Hours passed.
The police arrived.
Detective Mara Ellis interviewed Ryan first.
Then me.
I told her everything.
The documents.
The attempted transfer.
The attack.
Patricia’s arrival.
The words she said.
“Is everything finished?”
Detective Ellis wrote them down carefully.
“Did anyone else have access to the trust documents?”
“Ryan, me, our attorney, and the financial institution.”
“What about Patricia?”
“No.”
“Brianna?”
“No.”
“Then someone leaked confidential information.”
“Yes.”
Ryan sat in the corner.
He looked up.
“That’s what I was thinking.”
Detective Ellis turned.
“You said you received a message?”
Ryan handed her his phone.
She read it.
YOUR MOTHER PLANNED THIS MONTHS AGO.
“Unknown number?”
“Yes.”
“Could be spoofed.”
“Meaning?”
“Could’ve been sent through a masking service.”
“Can you trace it?”
“We’ll try.”
She returned the phone.
“The camera footage will matter.”
Ryan nodded.
“I already gave your digital unit access.”
I looked at him.
“You did?”
“From the ambulance.”
Of course he did.
That was Ryan.
He didn’t panic outwardly.
He built solutions while everyone else was still reacting.
The first officer to review the footage called Detective Ellis less than an hour later.
She stepped into the hallway.
When she returned, her expression had changed.
“We have the assault clearly recorded.”
Ryan’s shoulders dropped slightly.
“Everything?”
“Enough.”
“What about Patricia?”
“The camera captured her entering and speaking with Brianna.”
“What did she say?”
Detective Ellis glanced at me.
“What you remembered.”
Ryan looked down.
I knew what he was thinking.
His mother could no longer deny it.
But the detective wasn’t finished.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“The recording started before Brianna arrived.”
I frowned.
“The camera is motion activated.”
“Exactly.”
She opened a tablet.
“At 1:41 p.m., twenty-three minutes before your sister arrived, another person entered through your side door.”
Ryan stood.
“Who?”
“We’re enhancing the image.”
“Was it my mother?”
“No.”
“Male or female?”
“Male.”
My heart began beating faster.
“What did he do?”
“He went directly to the pantry.”
Ryan and I looked at each other.
The camera.
Detective Ellis continued.
“He stood on a chair and appeared to manipulate the security camera.”
Ryan’s face darkened.
“But it kept recording.”
“Apparently he believed he disabled it.”
“Who was he?”
“We’re working on that.”
A contraction hit.
Hard.
The monitors changed immediately.
Nurses entered.
Dr. Foster rushed back.
“Sarah, one baby’s heart rate is dropping.”
Ryan came to my side.
“What does that mean?”
“We’re delivering now.”
Everything happened quickly.
Consent forms.
Hospital gown.
Operating room lights.
Ryan was given scrubs.
He stayed near my head while surgeons prepared.
I was terrified.
Not for myself.
For Sophie.
For Lucas.
I had talked to them every night.
Sophie kicked whenever I ate peaches.
Lucas responded to Ryan’s voice through video calls.
They were already people to us.
Tiny, unfinished people.
“Ryan.”
“I’m here.”
“If something—”
“No.”
“Listen.”
“No.”
“Ryan.”
He leaned closer.
“All four of us are leaving this hospital.”
“Four?”
“You, me, Sophie, Lucas.”
Despite everything, I smiled.
The first baby arrived minutes later.
A girl.
Sophie.
Tiny.
Angry.
Beautiful.
Her cry filled the room.
I started sobbing.
Then Lucas.
Quiet at first.
Too quiet.
Doctors surrounded him.
Ryan’s face changed.
“What’s wrong?”
Nobody answered immediately.
Then a sound.
Thin.
Weak.
But there.
A cry.
Ryan closed his eyes.
“They’re here.”
Both babies were taken to the neonatal intensive care unit.
Premature.
Fragile.
Alive.
Those were the only three facts that mattered.
Hours later, I woke in recovery.
Ryan sat beside me.
He looked ten years older.
“How are they?”
“Stable.”
“Both?”
“Both.”
I cried again.
He leaned over and kissed my forehead.
Then his phone buzzed.
He checked it.
I watched his expression.
“What?”
“The police arrested Brianna.”
“And Patricia?”
“They brought her in for questioning.”
“Good.”
Ryan didn’t answer.
“What?”
He showed me the screen.
Detective Ellis had sent him a still image from the security footage.
The man who entered our house before Brianna.
Tall.
Gray suit.
Baseball cap.
His face partly turned toward the camera.
Ryan stared at him.
“You know him.”
He didn’t deny it.
“Ryan.”
“That’s Martin Hale.”
“Who?”
“My family’s attorney.”
I stared.
“Your mother’s attorney?”
“Our attorney.”
My stomach tightened.
Ryan zoomed in.
Martin Hale had handled the Brooks family’s legal affairs for twenty-three years.
Wills.
Business incorporations.
Property transfers.
Trusts.
But not ours.
Our trust had been created by a different law firm.
Or at least, that was what I thought.
Ryan sank into the chair.
“Why would Martin be in our house?”
“To disable the camera.”
“He doesn’t have a key.”
“Someone gave him one.”
Silence.
A nurse entered.
“Sophie’s stable enough for you to visit soon.”
For one precious second, nothing else mattered.
Then Ryan’s phone rang.
Detective Ellis.
He answered.
“Yes?”
He listened.
His face hardened.
“When?”
Another pause.
“Are you sure?”
He ended the call.
“What happened?”
He looked at me.
“Martin Hale is missing.”
“Since when?”
“Since yesterday.”
A cold feeling moved through me.
Ryan turned the phone toward me.
The detective had sent another image recovered from Martin’s office.
A scanned legal document.
At the top were Ryan’s name and mine.
At the bottom was my signature.
Except I had never signed it.
May you like
And beneath that forged signature was a single handwritten instruction:
IF SARAH REFUSES, USE PLAN B.
