Chapter 2
The heavy brass handle jerked down once, twice, and slammed against the deadbolt with the metallic shriek of stressed iron. Inside Room 412, nobody breathed.
"Who the hell is that?" Mark hissed, clutching newborn Noah so tightly against his chest that the infant let out a muffled whimper. "Dad, did you leave someone at the elevator?"
"I didn't leave anyone," Richard whispered harshly, his face draining of its arrogant color. "Denise, did you see the hallway guards?"
"The hallway was completely empty when we walked in," Denise snapped, her knuckles whitening as she pressed both palms against the locked wooden door. "Every nurse on the fourth floor was cleared out for shift change. I personally checked the registry!"
"Then who is rattling the lock, Mother?" Carla cried out, her high heels scraping nervously against the linoleum as she retreated toward the foot of the bed. "Who is out there?"
From the pillows, Emma let out a soft, humorless laugh that sounded like cracking ice.
"Ask him yourself, Richard," Emma murmured, her voice steady and lethal. "Open the door. Go ahead. Show them how brave you are when you're stealing an infant from a woman who can barely stand."
Richard wheeled around, his finger stabbing toward her face. "You shut your mouth! What did you do, Emma? Who did you call?"
"I didn't have to call anyone," Emma said, resting her head against the raised backrest while holding his panicked gaze. "Ethan anticipated you. He anticipated your debts, your greed, and the exact day you’d try to butcher his family."
"Ethan is dead!" Mark snarled, taking another step back until his shoulder hit the window blinds. "His plane went down in the Atlantic four weeks ago! The wreckage was confirmed!"
"The wreckage was found," Emma countered, her blue eyes narrowing into razor slits. "His body was not."
The lock rattled again, followed by a heavy, deliberate impact against the solid core wood. The entire frame shuddered.
"Open the door, Denise!" Mark ordered, sweat beading across his forehead. "We need to get to the stairwell! If security breaches this room with me holding the baby, the whole narrative falls apart!"
"Are you insane?" Denise rounded on her son, her jewelry clattering as she gestured frantically. "If that’s private hospital security out there, we walk out into custody! You hold that baby against your coat! If anyone comes through that threshold, you make it clear that Noah stays with us or nobody leaves this wing!"
"Don't you dare use my son as a shield," Emma said, her voice dropping into a register so dark that even Richard flinched.
"We do whatever we have to do to survive, darling," Denise sneered, turning her poisoned smile back toward the bed. "Your dead husband owes forty million dollars to our family trust. We are taking what belongs to us."
"Your trust didn't build Walker Aerospace," Emma replied. "You gambled your inheritance in Macau and asked Ethan to clean up your filth. He refused. That’s why you're here."
"Shut up!" Richard roared, reaching into his suit pocket and slamming a leather-bound folder onto the hospital tray table. "Sign the guardian authorization, Emma! Sign it right now, or Mark walks out the back fire escape with that boy and you will never hold him again!"
"Try it," a mechanical voice crackled.
May you like
Every head snapped toward the ceiling. The hospital intercom speaker above the door flickered green, its static cutting through the room like a drawn knife.
"Room 412," a deep, distorted voice spoke through the speaker. "Step away from the children."
