Chapter 1 - THE MAN OUTSIDE THE DOOR
The knocking stopped.
Then came three slower strikes.
Not panicked.
Not impatient.
Deliberate.
Elias raised one finger.
Every man in the penthouse went silent.
A second baby began crying in the nursery.
My entire body reacted before my mind did.
I pushed myself upright.
Pain tore through my back and abdomen.
Elias turned.
“Stay down.”
“My daughters—”
“Are protected.”
“You don't understand him.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Then explain.”
The knock came again.
A man's voice followed.
“Mr. Vance?”
Not my husband.
I froze.
The voice belonged to Dr. Colin Mercer, the physician who had examined me during pregnancy.
Elias looked toward me.
“You know him?”
“Yes.”
“Trust him?”
I almost said yes.
Then remembered where trusting people had gotten me.
“I don't know anymore.”
Good answer.
Elias motioned toward one of his men.
The security monitor showed Mercer standing outside alone.
No coat despite the freezing weather.
Blood on one sleeve.
Elias opened the door only after two guards positioned themselves out of sight.
Mercer stumbled inside.
“Thank God.”
He looked at me.
Then the nursery.
His face collapsed with relief.
“They're alive.”
I stared.
“How did you know they might not be?”
Mercer went pale.
Elias quietly closed the door.
“Doctor.”
His voice changed.
“You have one chance to explain why you came here bleeding and asking about two newborn girls.”
Mercer swallowed.
“Ava's husband sent men to my clinic.”
My stomach tightened.
“Why?”
“They wanted the delivery records.”
“What records?”
He looked at me.
“Ava, there were things about your pregnancy I never told you.”
Anger flashed through the fear.
“What things?”
“The twins were not supposed to be born at your apartment.”
I stared.
Of course not.
My husband had refused a hospital because he said doctors asked too many questions.
Mercer continued.
“I tried to get you admitted twice.”
“I remember.”
“Victor stopped it.”
My husband's name sounded filthy now.
Victor Miller.
He called himself a businessman.
In our neighborhood, everyone knew his money came from gambling rooms, collections, and men who carried baseball bats in car trunks.
Mercer opened his bag and removed a folded laboratory report.
“Your husband thought you were carrying one boy.”
“What?”
“An early test was falsified.”
I shook my head.
“No one told me the sex.”
“Victor knew.”
Elias stepped closer.
“Who falsified it?”
Mercer's voice dropped.
“His brother.”
Victor's older brother, Samuel, ran a private medical-lab company.
They had altered my blood-screen report to show a male fetus.
When later ultrasounds suggested twins, Victor refused further testing.
“He believed at least one would be a son,” Mercer said.
My hands began shaking.
“And when both were girls...”
Mercer looked away.
Elias finished:
“He considered them useless.”
Mercer nodded.
But then he said:
“That isn't why he wants them now.”
I looked toward the nursery.
“What changed?”
Mercer handed Elias another sheet.
Cord-blood results.
Taken secretly after delivery.
Two newborn identification numbers.
And beneath them:
PATERNAL MATCH INCONCLUSIVE.
My heart stopped.
“What does that mean?”
Mercer looked at me with fear.
“It means Victor may not be their biological father.”
The room disappeared.
“No.”
“I repeated it.”
“No.”
“Ava—”
“I have never been with another man.”
“I believe you.”
Then Elias took the report.
His expression changed as he reached the bottom.
“What?”
I demanded.
He slowly looked at me.
“The lab found a familial match.”
“To who?”
Elias did not answer immediately.
May you like
Then he said:
“To the Vance family.”
