Chapter 3 - The Dead Man in the Hospital PhotographI stopped breathing.
Daniel Blackwood had been dead for five years.
I knew because I had cleaned the black marble floors beneath his portrait every Monday morning. I knew because Nathan visited the family cemetery on the anniversary of his brother's death and returned to the mansion with an expression that made even his most trusted men leave him alone.
I knew because the entire Blackwood family had built its history around that funeral.
Yet there he was.
Alive.
Standing beside my hospital bed while I held a newborn Lily in my arms.
The photograph was grainy, taken through glass or captured by a hidden security camera. But there was no mistaking the face.
Daniel had Nathan's dark hair, strong jaw, and pale blue eyes. He looked slightly younger, his features softened by the easy smile that had reportedly made him the only person who could calm Nathan during their childhood.
Only this man wasn't smiling.
He was looking at Lily.
His expression was one of unbearable tenderness.
“No,” I whispered.
Nathan took the phone from my trembling hands.
“Have you ever seen this photograph?”
“Never.”
“Did Daniel visit you at the hospital?”
“I have never met Daniel.”
“Then explain why he's standing beside your bed.”
“I can't.”
Nathan's gaze snapped toward me.
“Grace, I need you to think carefully. Did anyone enter your room that night? Anyone from my family? Anyone claiming to be a doctor, a nurse, or a security officer?”
I closed my eyes.
The night Lily was born returned in fragments.
The fluorescent lights.
Emily holding my hand.
A nurse asking me to sign a form.
A stranger entering the room after midnight and telling me my baby needed additional testing.
I had been exhausted, frightened, and barely able to remain awake.
I remembered a man standing near the door.
Tall.
Dark-haired.
Wearing a black coat.
I remembered thinking he looked familiar.
But I had never been able to place him.
“I remember someone,” I whispered. “A man. He came into the room after Lily was born. He said he was there to check the baby's records.”
Nathan's eyes narrowed.
“What did he look like?”
“I don't know. It was dark. I was tired.”
“Did he touch her?”
My arms tightened around Lily.
“He took her for a few minutes.”
Nathan went absolutely still.
“What?”
“A nurse told me they needed to check her blood. Emily went with them. I was alone for perhaps twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes?”
“I didn't think anything of it. They brought her back, and I thought the matter was finished.”
Nathan's expression became terrifying.
“Someone took my newborn daughter from a hospital room, and you didn't tell anyone?”
“I didn't know she was your daughter!”
My voice cracked.
“And I had already received threats. Do you think I wasn't terrified? I was twenty-five years old, Nathan. I had just given birth. I was trying to keep my baby alive. I didn't have your men, your money, or your security system. I had my sister and a bag of clothes.”
He stared at me.
The anger in his eyes slowly gave way to something else.
Shame.
He looked down at Lily.
“I'm sorry,” he whispered.
I had never heard Nathan apologize.
Not to an employee.
Not to a rival.
Not even to the families of the men who had died working for him.
But he apologized to my daughter.
Then he stood and called his security chief.
“Bring me every photograph, medical record, visitor log, and surveillance recording from St. Catherine's Hospital on February fourteenth. I want the original files, not copies.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And find Daniel.”
A long silence followed.
“Sir?”
“You heard me.”
“Daniel Blackwood is dead.”
Nathan's eyes became ice.
“I buried my brother. I saw his coffin. I watched them lower it into the ground.”
“Then why would you ask us to find him?”
“Because someone is using his face to threaten my daughter. Either a dead man has returned to life, or someone has spent five years building a lie around his death.”
Nathan disconnected.
Lily reached for his phone.
He let her take it.
For a moment, he looked strangely lost.
Then he turned to me.
“I'm taking you and Lily upstairs.”
“No.”
His eyebrows drew together.
“Excuse me?”
“I need to know what's happening.”
“You will.”
“I need to make sure she's safe.”
“So do I.”
“And I'm not going anywhere until I understand why someone has a photograph of my daughter and a dead man.”
Nathan studied me.
For the first time, he seemed to recognize that I wasn't merely afraid.
I was furious.
Three months of sleeping behind a laundry cart had exhausted any patience I possessed.
“I am not your prisoner,” I said.
“No,” he replied. “You're my employee, the mother of a child who may be my daughter, and the only witness we have to what happened at that hospital.”
He extended his hand.
“You're also the only person in this mansion who knows what Lily needs when she wakes up hungry at three in the morning. So, for the moment, I suggest we work together.”
I hesitated.
Then I took his hand.
He didn't grip it like an order.
He held it like a promise.
We left the laundry room together.
The mansion's staff watched us from the corridor, pretending not to stare. Walter, the elderly doorman who had secretly carried bananas and baby supplies to my hiding place, looked as though he might faint.
Nathan stopped in front of him.
“Walter.”
The old man straightened.
“Sir.”
“How long have you known about the baby?”
Walter swallowed.
“Three months, sir.”
“Did you help Grace hide her?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Walter's gaze moved to Lily.
“Because she needed a safe place, sir.”
Nathan said nothing.
Walter lowered his head.
“I know I broke the rules. If you want to dismiss me, I understand.”
Nathan looked toward the staircase.
“Anyone who helped keep my daughter alive will not be dismissed for it.”
The words spread through the corridor like a sudden change in the weather.
My daughter.
He had said it.
He had not demanded a test or waited for proof.
He had called her his daughter.
I felt my eyes burn.
Then Nathan turned toward his chief of security, who had appeared beside the staircase.
“Take Grace and the child to the east suite. Put two trusted guards outside. Nobody enters without my permission, and nobody leaves with information about this situation.”
“Yes, sir.”
Nathan took three steps toward his office.
Then he stopped.
“Grace?”
I looked at him.
He seemed about to say something personal.
Something that belonged to the night nine months earlier.
But he changed his mind.
“Don't unpack everything,” he said. “We may have to leave quickly.”
“Why?”
His phone rang.
He answered immediately.
“What did you find?”
The security chief's voice came through the speaker.
“Sir, we've located the hospital nurse who signed the infant-transfer record.”
“And?”
“She died six weeks after the birth.”
Nathan's face hardened.
“How?”
“The official report says accidental overdose.”
I heard another sentence in the background.
The chief paused.
Then he continued.
“Sir, there's one more thing. We checked the hospital's staff photographs.”
“Get to the point.”
“The man identified as Daniel wasn't an impostor.”
My knees weakened.
Nathan's expression became unreadable.
The security chief finished in a voice barely above a whisper.
“We found a fingerprint match. The man in the photograph is almost certainly your brother.”
Nathan looked at me.
Then, with terrible calm, he asked the question that changed everything.
“Grace, do you understand what this means?”
I shook my head.
He leaned closer.
“If Daniel was alive when Lily was born, then either my brother is connected to your daughter's existence…”
He glanced toward Lily.
“…or someone wanted us to believe he was.”
Before I could answer, a gunshot cracked through the mansion.
Lily screamed.
Nathan seized us both and shoved us behind the marble staircase as another shot shattered the window above us.
And somewhere in the chaos, a man's voice rang through the hall.
“BLACKWOOD! YOU HAVE TEN MINUTES TO HAND OVER THE CHILD!”
Nathan drew his weapon.
Then he looked at Lily.
His face became something I had never seen before.
Not the expression of a mafia boss protecting his empire.
The expression of a father realizing someone had come to kill his child.
May you like
“Grace,” he said, placing Lily into my arms.
“Whatever happens, you do not let go of her.”
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