Chapter 4
Detective Hayes traced Vanessa’s call to a closed medical facility outside the city.
The old Vale clinic had been abandoned after a patient died during an unauthorized trial.
Conrad Blake’s security company still monitored the building.
Federal agents prepared a rescue operation.
I was ordered to remain at the hospital.
I refused.
“Oliver’s kidnappers asked for me.”
“That is exactly why you cannot go,” Hayes said.
“They may kill him if I don’t.”
Harrison stood beside me.
He wanted to agree with Hayes.
I could see it.
But he also knew no court order could keep me in that room.
The doctors discharged me with strict instructions to avoid stress.
Stress had already broken through the door.
Agents placed a tracker beneath my coat and gave me the flash drive.
The original remained with federal investigators.
I approached the clinic alone.
The glass entrance doors opened automatically.
Inside, emergency lights illuminated an empty reception desk.
A speaker crackled.
“Place the drive in the elevator.”
Conrad Blake’s voice.
I obeyed.
The elevator carried the drive upward without me.
“Now enter Examination Room Six.”
Oliver was inside.
He lay unconscious on a narrow bed, connected to a heart monitor.
Vanessa sat beside him with her hands tied.
Her face was bruised.
When she saw me, she began crying.
“I didn’t know they would do this.”
“You knew what Richard planned for my baby.”
“I knew he wanted cord blood.”
“You knew about the custody papers.”
She looked away.
“I thought you would still be allowed to visit her.”
I nearly laughed at the cruelty hidden inside that sentence.
“You believed stealing my child was acceptable if I received visits?”
“I was desperate.”
“So you pushed me down the courthouse steps.”
“I wanted to frighten you.”
“You could have killed both of us.”
Oliver stirred.
His eyes opened.
“Mom?”
Vanessa moved toward him, but the ropes held her.
A screen above the bed activated.
Conrad appeared.
He stood in the clinic’s old operating room beside Judge Voss and Dr. Nathan Vale, Richard’s father.
“I need Emily’s cooperation,” Nathan said.
“What do you want?”
“A prenatal procedure will collect the cells Oliver needs.”
“My doctors said any invasive procedure could trigger early labor.”
“Our doctors are better.”
“Your doctors work for you.”
Nathan’s expression remained cold.
“If you refuse, Oliver’s condition will deteriorate.”
“You are holding your grandson hostage.”
“I am ensuring everyone makes the correct decision.”
Vanessa stared at the screen.
“Dad, release us.”
Conrad ignored her.
She finally understood that her father’s loyalty belonged to the plan, not to her.
The examination-room door opened.
Two medical workers entered.
I overturned an equipment cart.
Vanessa kicked one worker when he came near Oliver.
The other grabbed me.
Harrison and federal agents broke through the hallway doors before he could restrain me.
The rescue team had entered through an underground service tunnel.
Agents freed Vanessa and secured Oliver.
Conrad, Voss, and Nathan escaped through the operating wing.
In the abandoned office, investigators found contracts involving dozens of pregnant women.
Vale Medical had identified expectant mothers whose babies could serve as biological matches for wealthy clients.
Some mothers had been manipulated through marriages.
Others were falsely declared unfit after giving birth.
My case was not the first.
Harrison found a list of infants transferred through sealed family-court proceedings.
At the bottom was my daughter’s expected delivery date.
The assigned recipient was not Oliver.
It was Judge Voss.
Richard had lied about the entire reason for our marriage.
May you like
Oliver had been used to make me cooperate.
Judge Voss intended to take my baby.
