Chapter 2 - THE HEARTBEAT THAT SLOWED
Our daughter’s heartbeat slowed twice before midnight.
Each drop brought three nurses into the room. They repositioned me, adjusted fluids, and watched the monitor until the rhythm recovered.
Dr. Ortiz explained every step without making promises.
“You are thirty-five weeks pregnant. We would prefer more time, but persistent distress can become more dangerous than premature delivery.”
Sebastian stood beside the bed holding my hand.
His thumb moved carefully over my swollen fingers.
I wanted to pull away.
Not because I believed he had joined Eleanor beneath the table.
Because his touch made the questions harder to avoid.
“Did you know?” I asked.
“Know what?”
“That she made me work.”
“No.”
“That she took the food.”
“No.”
“That she told me you wanted me to obey her?”
His face tightened.
“I never told her that.”
“She showed me messages from you.”
“I didn’t send them.”
I closed my eyes.
For twenty-four days, Eleanor had told me Sebastian was disappointed by my pregnancy weakness. She said he believed I needed structure because I was becoming lazy and manipulative.
His account had sent messages.
Mom is trying to help. Stop creating conflict.
You wanted this baby. Act grateful.
I had read those words while hungry enough to feel dizzy.
Sebastian unlocked his phone and showed me the sent-message history.
The messages were absent.
“That doesn’t prove anything,” I whispered.
“No. It means we preserve both devices.”
The old Clara would have accepted his answer as enough.
The woman beneath the table needed evidence.
Dr. Ortiz returned after another deceleration.
“We need to prepare for delivery.”
The operating room became bright light, cold air, masked faces, and the pressure of hands working beyond the blue surgical drape. Sebastian remained near my head until the anesthesiologist asked him to move.
Our daughter arrived without a cry.
The silence lasted three seconds.
Maybe four.
It became the longest sound I had ever heard.
Then a thin, furious cry filled the room.
“Baby girl,” someone said. “Two point two kilograms.”
I saw one red cheek before the neonatal team carried her to a warmer.
Sebastian cried openly.
I did not.
My body had passed beyond tears.
We named her Grace, the name we had chosen after our third pregnancy loss.
She required breathing support and transfer to the neonatal intensive-care unit. Doctors called her condition serious but stable.
I remained in recovery with an incision across my abdomen and iron entering through an IV.
Sebastian sat beside me until private security chief Marcus Hale arrived with a sealed tablet.
“I preserved the secondary archive,” Marcus said. “Someone tried deleting it while you were driving to the hospital.”
“Who had administrative access?” Sebastian asked.
“You. Mrs. Eleanor Vance. Julian. And the smart-home contractor.”
Julian was Sebastian’s younger brother and the chief financial officer of Vance Meridian Imports.
He had been at the corporate meeting downtown.
Or claimed to be.
May you like
Marcus opened the system log.
The deletion command came from Julian’s executive laptop eleven minutes after Sebastian overturned the table.
