Chapter 10
Everyone told me no.
My doctor.
Sarah.
Claire.
Reed.
I had delivered a baby days earlier.
I could barely stand without help.
My body was stitched, bruised, and weak.
But my voice was not.
“If Mara and Sophie are alive because Mara saved my number, then I am coming.”
Reed stared at me.
“This is not a movie.”
“No. It is my life.”
Claire stepped beside me.
“And hers.”
In the end, I went in an ambulance with a police escort, parked far from the estate command line.
Grace stayed at the hospital with an armed officer and a nurse Sarah trusted with her life.
Leaving her felt like tearing my heart in half.
But another mother had torn hers open to save me.
The estate sat behind iron gates and old money.
Reed’s team moved first.
Then state police.
Then federal agents.
Shots were fired before sunrise.
I gripped Claire’s hand so hard she winced.
After twenty minutes, Reed came over the radio.
“We have a child.”
I stopped breathing.
Then, “Female. Approximately seven. Alive.”
Claire sobbed.
I whispered, “Sophie.”
Five minutes later, Reed’s voice returned.
“We have an adult female. Critical condition. Alive.”
Mara.
I covered my face and broke.
They brought Sophie to the ambulance wrapped in a blanket.
She had dark hair and Nathan’s eyes.
That hurt.
Then she looked at me and said, “Are you the lady under the floor?”
I nodded.
She climbed into my lap like she had known me forever.
“Mommy said you would believe me.”
May you like
“I do,” I whispered.
“I do.”
