Chapter 3
Richard Vance’s eyes narrowed into cold, unforgiving slits. Without a second thought, he pulled his free hand back and struck Maya brutally across the side of the head.
The sound of the open-handed slap echoed sharply against the sterile walls of the hospital room. The sheer force of the blow lifted Maya off her feet. She spun backward, her vision exploding into a constellation of white stars. She collapsed heavily against the edge of the mattress, sliding down until her head hit the pillows. The oxygen mask swung wildly around her neck, and a sharp ringing sound filled her ears.
She lay there, dazed and gasping for breath, the metallic taste of blood pooling in the corner of her mouth. Her fair skin was rapidly blooming with a dark, angry red welt where his heavy wedding ring had caught her cheekbone.
The room fell into a horrifying, tense silence, broken only by the frantic crying of the baby in Richard’s arms and the two remaining triplets in the bassinet, who had woken up from the commotion.
No one spoke. Daniel looked slightly uncomfortable, shifting his weight from one leather shoe to the other, but he made absolutely no move to help his sister-in-law. Richard simply adjusted his suit jacket, looking down at Maya with profound disgust.
Through the dizzying fog of pain, Maya’s survival instincts kicked into overdrive. She knew she could not overpower the three of them physically. She needed an equalizer. Slowly, silently, she slipped her hand beneath the folds of the hospital sheets. Her fingers blindly searched the side rail of the bed until they brushed against the hard plastic casing of the nurse’s call remote. With every ounce of strength she had left, she pressed the red emergency button, holding it down tight.
Jessica, completely oblivious to Maya’s hidden action, stepped confidently toward the bassinet. She looked down at the two remaining crying babies, then shifted her gaze to Maya, staring at the battered mother with chilling impatience and smug contempt.
"Stop being so dramatic, Maya," Jessica said, her voice sharp with deep-seated resentment. "You still have two of them left to play house with. You're young enough to pop out a replacement anyway."
Maya squeezed her eyes shut, fighting through the wave of nausea caused by the head trauma. "You... you will never get away with this. There are cameras... there are nurses..."
"The nurses in this wing work for the Vance Foundation," Richard stated calmly, rocking the stolen infant with an eerie, mechanical rhythm. "And the cameras in this corridor were conveniently scheduled for maintenance an hour ago. You have no leverage, Maya. By tomorrow, the birth certificate will officially list Daniel and Jessica as the biological parents of this boy."
"It's true, Maya," Daniel finally spoke, his voice hollow and weak. "Dad has already filed the paperwork. It’s done. Just go to sleep. When you wake up, it will all feel like a bad dream."
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"I will kill you," Maya whispered, her almond eyes snapping open, blazing with a terrifying, unyielding maternal hatred. "If you take my son out of this room, I will hunt you down and I will kill you, Daniel."
Jessica laughed, a high, grating sound. "Look at her, Daniel. She thinks she's in a movie. Let's just go. The baby is ruining my outfit."
