Chapter 3 - THE DAUGHTER THEY TOLD ME I LOST
I had buried three babies in my imagination.
Now one might never have died.
The thought was so enormous that for several seconds, I forgot the burns beneath my bandages.
Christian was the first to speak.
“What do you mean somebody took her?”
Her.
My child had been a girl.
Dr. Lawson sounded frightened.
“I mean exactly what I said.”
“You told me the pregnancy failed.”
“It was supposed to.”
The words nearly tore a sound from my throat.
I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste blood.
Lawson continued.
“The drug regimen caused complications, but she came in bleeding before the fetus was lost.”
“And?”
“We stabilized the pregnancy.”
Christian’s voice dropped.
“And Genevieve?”
“She was sedated.”
My memory returned in pieces.
The third miscarriage.
I had been twenty weeks pregnant.
Farther than the others.
I remembered waking in a private clinic bed with Christian beside me.
He had been crying.
Dr. Lawson told me there had been no heartbeat.
He said surgery had been necessary.
He said the fetus was too damaged for me to see.
I had begged.
Christian had held me while I screamed.
Later, I spent six months unable to walk past the room we had planned to make a nursery.
Now Lawson was telling him that my daughter had survived.
Christian sounded almost angry.
“You let Genevieve carry another five weeks?”
“No. We transferred her.”
“To where?”
“A private obstetric facility outside Cincinnati.”
“And then?”
“The baby was delivered early.”
My heart pounded so violently I was sure the monitor would betray me.
Lawson noticed.
“Her heart rate.”
Christian moved toward the bed.
“Is she waking?”
“Probably pain response.”
Lawson adjusted something near the monitor.
I stayed still.
“Continue.”
The doctor hesitated.
“The baby was viable.”
“How long ago?”
“Three years and eight months.”
My daughter.
Almost four.
Somewhere.
Maybe alive.
Christian whispered, “Why wasn’t I told?”
“You specifically said you wanted the pregnancy ended without scandal.”
“I didn’t say give the kid away.”
“You wanted Genevieve unable to connect you to anything.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
Christian’s anger changed.
Danger entered his voice.
“Wrong answer.”
“I swear.”
“Who took her?”
“There was a nurse.”
“Name.”
“Margaret Ellis.”
“Where is she?”
“She disappeared after the delivery.”
“And you never looked?”
“I did.”
“Not hard enough.”
I couldn’t understand Christian’s anger.
He had wanted my baby gone.
Why care where she was now?
Then he answered my question himself.
“If that child exists and somebody proves she’s mine, Sabrina will lose her mind.”
There it was.
Not love.
Not concern.
Risk management.
Dr. Lawson said, “Christian, you have bigger problems.”
“No. A secret daughter is exactly the kind of problem reporters turn into a documentary.”
“You paid someone to attack Genevieve.”
“They can’t prove that.”
I listened to the man I had planned to marry discuss my daughter as a publicity problem.
Something inside me became very still.
The grief didn’t disappear.
Neither did fear.
But underneath them, something stronger formed.
Purpose.
I needed to survive.
Not merely to expose Christian.
Not merely because he deserved punishment.
I needed to find my child.
Christian left fifteen minutes later.
Lawson followed.
The door closed.
I waited.
Then opened my eyes.
Gabriel stepped from the bathroom.
He had hidden there before Christian arrived.
His face looked almost as shocked as I felt.
“You heard?”
“All of it.”
I tried to sit up.
Pain ripped through my face and neck.
Gabriel moved forward.
“Don’t.”
“My daughter.”
“I know.”
“I have a daughter.”
“We don’t know for certain.”
I stared at him.
“Do not say that to me.”
He stopped.
“Sorry.”
Dr. Reed entered moments later.
Gabriel filled her in.
She looked horrified.
“We need law enforcement.”
“Not yet.”
“Genevieve—”
“I need Margaret Ellis.”
Gabriel was already typing the name into his phone.
“Common name.”
“Lawson said she was a nurse.”
“Cincinnati area, approximately four years ago.”
He nodded.
“I’ll give it to Rebecca.”
The attorney arrived before sunrise.
Rebecca Sloan was sixty-two, silver-haired, and wore a charcoal suit that made everyone else in the room look underdressed.
She listened without interrupting.
When Gabriel finished, she stared at him.
“You recorded both conversations?”
“Yes.”
“Have you altered the files?”
“No.”
“Made copies?”
“Several.”
“Good.”
Then she looked at me.
“You need protection.”
“Everybody keeps saying that.”
“Because everybody is correct.”
She pulled out a legal pad.
“Christian Prescott is extraordinarily wealthy, famous, and apparently willing to arrange serious violence. That makes him dangerous.”
“I know.”
“No. You know emotionally.”
Rebecca leaned closer.
“I need you to understand legally and strategically. You cannot confront him. You cannot threaten him. You cannot post online. You cannot call Sabrina.”
“Why not?”
“Because evidence is more valuable than anger.”
I didn’t like her.
Which probably meant I needed her.
She continued.
“We have evidence of conspiracy to assault, possible attempted murder depending on the chemical and intent, obstruction, medical fraud, reproductive coercion, possibly kidnapping or unlawful adoption if the child survived.”
The list made my stomach turn.
“My daughter isn’t a legal category.”
Rebecca’s expression softened.
“No. She isn’t.”
For the first time, her voice lost its courtroom edge.
“She’s the reason we do this carefully.”
By morning, Rebecca had contacted an investigator she trusted.
Former FBI.
Name: Marcus Hale.
No relation to Christian.
Gabriel arranged a secure apartment under a corporate lease that had no connection to Christian’s business.
But getting me out of the hospital without Christian knowing was the problem.
At 8:30, Christian held a press conference outside St. Jude.
Gabriel turned on the television.
My fiancé appeared before forty microphones.
He wore black.
No tie.
Eyes red.
He had even left his hair unstyled.
A grieving man.
A terrified lover.
America’s devastated golden boy.
“I just want Genevieve to wake up,” he told reporters, voice breaking. “I don’t care about the wedding. I don’t care about the tour. I don’t care about anything except her.”
I stared at the television.
He was magnificent.
Five years of watching him perform should have prepared me.
It didn’t.
A reporter shouted, “Christian, will you still marry her if she is permanently disfigured?”
He looked offended.
“How can you ask me that?”
The reporter apologized.
Christian stepped closer to the microphones.
“I love Genevieve. I would marry her if every mirror in the world broke tomorrow.”
Cameras clicked.
Someone in the hallway actually sighed.
I nearly vomited.
Gabriel turned the television off.
“He’s already winning.”
Rebecca looked at him.
“Public opinion is irrelevant to criminal evidence.”
“In theory.”
“In court, mostly.”
I spoke quietly.
“He wants to be seen as loyal.”
“Yes,” Gabriel said.
“Then we use that.”
Everyone looked at me.
“What?”
“I can’t disappear suddenly. He’ll know.”
Rebecca frowned.
“Correct.”
“So don’t make me disappear.”
I explained.
The hospital would announce that I was being transferred to a specialized burn and reconstructive facility under private security.
That part would be true.
Christian would believe I remained sedated.
His team would follow the official ambulance.
But I would leave through a separate underground route ninety minutes earlier.
Dr. Reed hated the idea.
Rebecca hated it more.
Gabriel said it could work.
Which told me immediately that Gabriel had spent too many years doing things no attorney would approve.
By noon, the transfer plan was in motion.
Before I left, Dr. Reed removed part of the dressing to inspect the burns.
“Do you want a mirror?”
My stomach tightened.
“No.”
She nodded.
No pressure.
Then I changed my mind.
“Yes.”
Gabriel started to leave.
“Stay.”
He stopped.
Dr. Reed handed me a small mirror.
I lifted it slowly.
For one second, I didn’t recognize myself.
The left side was still me.
The right side was swollen, red, blistered, and raw.
My cheek looked distorted.
My jawline disappeared beneath inflammation.
I stared.
Then I remembered Christian saying, If she’s left scarred, even better.
He wanted this face to imprison me.
I lowered the mirror.
Gabriel’s eyes were wet.
“Don’t.”
He looked away.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For knowing what kind of man he was and convincing myself he had limits.”
I studied him.
“Did you love him?”
Gabriel laughed bitterly.
“No.”
“Then why stay?”
“He was nineteen when I met him.”
His voice softened.
“Talented. Hungry. Terrified. His father had stolen most of the money from his first contract. His label treated him like a product.”
“That doesn’t explain twenty years.”
“No.”
Gabriel looked toward the window.
“At some point, helping him succeed became my identity.”
I understood that more than I wanted to.
I had made Christian part of mine too.
I touched the edge of the bandage.
“He doesn’t get to keep either of us.”
At 2:05 p.m., I left St. Jude Medical Center hidden beneath a hooded patient transfer blanket.
At 3:37, Christian watched an ambulance leave through the front entrance carrying a different patient behind tinted glass.
By four, I was inside a secure reconstructive clinic two counties away.
No press.
No Christian.
No Lawson.
For the first time in five years, nobody around me worked for my fiancé.
That evening, Marcus Hale called Rebecca.
We gathered around the phone.
“I found Margaret Ellis.”
My heart stopped.
“Where?”
“Lexington, Kentucky.”
“Did you speak with her?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
Marcus hesitated.
Rebecca said, “Mr. Hale.”
He continued.
“She remembers Genevieve.”
My fingers tightened around the blanket.
“She remembers the delivery.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“And the baby?”
Another pause.
“She says the child survived.”
The room blurred.
My daughter.
Alive.
I covered my mouth.
“Where is she?”
Marcus answered carefully.
“That’s the problem.”
“What problem?”
“Margaret Ellis didn’t keep her.”
“Then who did?”
“She says Dr. Lawson arranged for the baby to be transferred three days after birth.”
“To where?”
“I’m working on it.”
I closed my eyes.
“Was she adopted?”
“Possibly.”
“By who?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Then Marcus added something else.
“But Margaret remembers one detail.”
I opened my eyes.
“What?”
“The man who signed the transfer papers.”
My skin went cold.
“Christian?”
“No.”
May you like
Marcus took a breath.
“Christian’s father.”
