Chapter 4
For a second, nobody moved.
Even the machines seemed quieter.
Sofia held Luca against her chest.
Matteo and Isabella slept in their bassinets.
Angela’s words circled the room like a blade.
The first child born to the woman Julian legally married.
I stood slowly.
“Say that again.”
Angela looked at the tablet.
“Julian’s father amended the will six months before he died. He suspected Bianca and Victor were manipulating the trust. The clause says if Julian marries and a child is born of that marriage, controlling shares pass into a protective trust for the firstborn child, managed by the child’s mother until age twenty-five.”
Sofia blinked.
“Firstborn?”
Nurse Claire looked at the birth chart.
“Matteo was delivered first.”
Luca stirred in Sofia’s arms.
I looked at the bassinets.
Matteo.
Not Luca.
The baby Victor tried to take was not the firstborn.
Something was wrong.
Angela saw it at the same time.
“Why Luca?” she whispered.
I turned to Nurse Claire.
“Birth order. Was there any confusion?”
“No,” she said. “Matteo first. Isabella second. Luca third.”
“Recorded?”
“Yes.”
“Who had access?”
She hesitated.
“Delivery team. Hospital admin. Family liaison.”
“Name.”
Her jaw tightened.
“Bianca Vale insisted on assigning her own liaison. A woman named Maren Holt.”
Angela began typing.
I called Marco.
“Find Maren Holt.”
He answered, “Already missing from the staff lounge.”
My blood chilled.
Angela looked up.
“There’s an amended birth order certificate pending in the hospital system.”
Sofia sat up too fast and winced.
“They changed it?”
“Someone tried,” Angela said. “It lists Luca as Baby A.”
Nurse Claire went pale.
“That is impossible.”
“Not impossible,” I said. “Just criminal.”
Sofia began breathing fast.
“They were taking the baby they planned to call firstborn.”
“Yes,” Angela said softly.
I looked at Luca.
The smallest.
The one they thought they could move quietly while everyone focused on Sofia recovering.
Rage pressed against my ribs.
But rage was simple.
This was not simple.
“Why not take Matteo?” I asked.
Angela paused.
Then opened another file.
Her face tightened.
“Because Matteo’s newborn blood screen was tagged.”
“For what?”
She read silently.
Then looked at Dr. Patel, who had returned to check on Sofia.
“Can this be accurate?”
He took the tablet.
His expression changed.
“This says Matteo carries a genetic marker for a rare metabolic condition. Luca does not.”
Sofia gasped.
“Is Matteo sick?”
Dr. Patel shook his head quickly.
“A marker is not a diagnosis. We will test properly.”
I stared at Angela.
“They wanted the healthiest male infant listed as firstborn.”
Angela nodded.
“And removed before anyone challenged the record.”
Sofia whispered, “They were choosing between my sons.”
Her voice held horror I would never forget.
I walked to the window.
For a moment, I looked out at the hospital parking lot, because if I kept looking at Julian, even in memory, I would forget restraint.
Bianca had planned everything.
The fertility procedures.
The forged consent.
The birth order alteration.
The fake transfer.
The courier.
The men downstairs.
The attempted removal.
All of it for shares.
For control.
For a dead man’s company.
At 4:12 a.m., Maren Holt was caught trying to leave through a staff exit.
She had two phones, ten thousand dollars in cash, and a printed birth amendment order in her purse.
By sunrise, she was talking.
Not because she had a conscience.
May you like
Because Angela offered the police enough documentation to make silence look expensive.
Maren said Bianca paid
