Chapter 4 - The Baby Who Should Have DiedAdrian stared at Natalie as if he had never seen her before.
“You're lying.”
“I wish I were.”
“No.”
He stepped back.
“No. I was there.”
“You were outside the operating room.”
“I held him.”
“You held a baby.”
Adrian's face twisted.
“You expect me to believe you swapped my son?”
“I didn't.”
“Then explain!”
Natalie was sobbing.
“Your son was born with complications.”
“What complications?”
“A severe respiratory problem.”
“Why didn't anyone tell me?”
“Because the doctors thought he had minutes.”
Adrian remembered that night.
The storm.
The hospital lights.
The nurse carrying a tiny bundle through the doors.
His mother crying.
Daniel telling him to stay calm.
He had believed everything.
Natalie wiped her tears.
“Your father had people at that hospital.”
Adrian froze.
“What?”
“He had ordered a DNA test before Owen was born.”
“Why?”
“To confirm the heir.”
“And?”
Natalie looked away.
“The test was never performed.”
“Why?”
“Because another child was brought into the nursery.”
Adrian felt sick.
“Another child?”
“Yes.”
“Whose?”
Natalie whispered:
“I don't know.”
Adrian grabbed a chair.
His knees nearly failed.
“You've been raising someone else's baby.”
Natalie nodded.
“I thought the baby you were holding was Owen.”
“And when did you learn he wasn't?”
“Two weeks after the birth.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because by then Julian's enemies were already watching us.”
Adrian stared at her.
“You could have gone to the police.”
“They would have killed him.”
“Who?”
Natalie shook her head.
“I never learned the name.”
Adrian’s phone rang again.
Daniel.
“Adrian, where are you?”
“Hospital.”
“I found something.”
“I'm listening.”
“We recovered surveillance footage from the night Owen was born.”
Adrian’s pulse jumped.
“From where?”
“The maternity wing.”
“Send it.”
“There is a problem.”
“What?”
“The footage was deliberately deleted.”
Adrian closed his eyes.
“Of course it was.”
“But someone overlooked one camera.”
“Which one?”
“Loading dock.”
Adrian waited.
Daniel spoke carefully.
“At 2:17 a.m., a woman exits the hospital carrying a baby.”
Adrian looked at Natalie.
“What woman?”
“Your mother.”
The call ended.
Adrian turned.
Natalie had gone pale.
“Your mother was at the hospital that night,” Adrian said.
“I know.”
“You said she left before the delivery.”
“She told me she did.”
His phone buzzed.
Daniel had sent the image.
Adrian opened it.
Grainy security footage.
A woman wearing a long dark coat.
Holding an infant.
He zoomed.
The woman turned slightly.
His mother's face was unmistakable.
Adrian felt a second shock.
A man walked beside her.
He recognized him too.
His father.
Adrian’s dead father.
Impossible.
He enlarged the image.
The timestamp was dated four months before his father’s death.
The man was definitely alive.
Adrian whispered:
“My father wasn't dead.”
Natalie stared at the screen.
“That changes everything.”
“No.”
Adrian shook his head.
“It changes nothing.”
He remembered his father's funeral.
The coffin.
The closed casket.
The doctor who signed the death certificate.
The will.
Everything.
His father had supposedly died in Switzerland.
But now there was evidence he had been in the same hospital where Adrian's son was born.
And someone had carried a baby out with him.
Adrian's phone rang again.
A blocked number.
He answered.
No one spoke.
Then he heard a child's voice.
A little girl.
Terrified.
“Mr. Vale?”
Adrian's blood froze.
“Who is this?”
“It's Maisie.”
“Where are you?”
“I'm in the basement.”
Adrian stood.
“Why are you in the basement?”
She whispered:
“My mom told me to hide.”
“From whom?”
“I don't know.”
A man's voice suddenly sounded in the background.
Deep.
Calm.
“Maisie.”
The girl gasped.
Then the line went dead.
Adrian ran from the room.
He didn't care that the hospital staff shouted after him.
He didn't care that security followed.
He had one thought.
The basement.
He returned to the mansion.
The hidden staircase beneath the nursery was still open.
Adrian descended.
The lights were off.
He switched on his flashlight.
Maisie's toy sat on the floor.
A red shoe lay beside it.
Then he heard a slow metallic creak.
At the end of the corridor stood a man.
Tall.
Gray-haired.
Wearing an immaculate black suit.
Adrian's breath stopped.
May you like
His father looked back at him.
And smiled.
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