Chapter 5 - He Tried to Take My BabyWhen a hospital administrator entered my room and said my husband had arrived with law enforcement, every instinct in my body turned to ice.
“Why?”
The administrator, Ms. Keller, kept her voice calm.
“He says you are withholding his child.”
I looked at Noah.
Then at Dad.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
Ms. Keller shook her head.
“The officer is here for a welfare check. He does not have a court order.”
That mattered.
Martin was already standing.
“I’ll handle it.”
“No.”
Everyone looked at me.
I pushed myself upright.
Pain pulled across my repaired incision, but I stayed up.
“I’m tired of people handling things while I sit in another room wondering what they’re saying about me.”
Dad started to object.
I looked at him.
“Please.”
He nodded.
Five minutes later, Dominic entered with a uniformed officer and a hospital security supervisor.
He had changed into a navy blazer and pale blue shirt.
His hair was combed.
His expression was exhausted in a photogenic way.
He looked like a concerned husband.
That was deliberate.
“Audrey.”
I said nothing.
His eyes went to Noah.
“I’ve been trying to see my son.”
“You were in the same house with him this afternoon.”
“You left.”
“I left in an ambulance.”
The officer glanced toward Dominic.
Dominic cleared his throat.
“There was an accident.”
Martin stepped forward.
“I’m counsel for Mrs. Mercer.”
Dominic looked irritated.
“Of course you are.”
The officer held up a hand.
“Everybody, I’m not here to resolve marital disputes. Mr. Mercer reported concern about his newborn child’s location and well-being. I can clearly see the child is here with his mother in a hospital.”
“Because she refuses to let me take him,” Dominic said.
I stared at him.
“Where do you want to take a five-day-old breastfed baby?”
“Home.”
“With Vivian?”
“With me.”
“You were planning to go to the Cayman Islands yesterday.”
His face changed.
Only for a fraction of a second.
The officer noticed.
“What?”
Dominic laughed.
“That’s ridiculous.”
Martin spoke.
“We have documentation relating to a canceled charter itinerary.”
“That was business.”
“Under Audrey’s name?”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“Then perhaps you should stop demanding unsupervised possession of an infant while your financial activities are under investigation.”
Dominic’s face reddened.
“You don’t get to threaten me with rumors.”
My father hadn’t spoken yet.
Dominic finally noticed him standing by the window.
“Charles.”
Dad looked at him.
“Dominic.”
“You enjoying this?”
“No.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“I’m watching my daughter recover from a second medical intervention because you shoved past me while she was holding your son.”
“I shoved you.”
“Yes.”
“Not her.”
“You created the fall.”
Dominic looked at the officer.
“See? This is what I’m dealing with. They’re twisting everything.”
The officer remained neutral.
“Mr. Mercer, do you have any custody order requiring the child to be turned over to you tonight?”
“No, because we’re married.”
“That isn’t a court order.”
Dominic stared at him.
The officer continued.
“The baby appears safe. The mother is receiving medical care. I have no basis to remove a newborn from this room.”
Dominic’s carefully constructed expression cracked.
“So she can just steal my kid?”
I felt something cold settle over me.
“Steal?”
I looked at Noah.
Then at Dominic.
“I carried him for thirty-nine weeks.”
“That doesn’t make him more yours than mine.”
“No. Being here does.”
Silence.
Dominic’s eyes narrowed.
“You think because your father has money you can erase me?”
“No.”
I reached for my phone.
“I think your own choices are doing that.”
His face hardened.
“Be careful, Audrey.”
The room changed.
The officer immediately stepped forward.
“What does that mean?”
Dominic raised both hands.
“Nothing. It’s a figure of speech.”
Martin said, “We’d like that included in your report.”
Dominic turned on him.
“This is unbelievable.”
Then he looked at me again.
“We can still fix this.”
I almost pitied him.
Not because he deserved pity.
Because he still believed the marriage was something he could negotiate like a debt.
“Where’s my money?”
His jaw tightened.
“Audrey.”
“Where is my passport?”
“We’re working that out.”
“Where are my grandmother’s bonds?”
“I told you I don’t know.”
“Why did you try to put my house in your mother’s name?”
“To protect it.”
“From whom?”
“Creditors.”
There it was.
The officer looked between us.
Dominic realized what he had said.
I whispered, “Your creditors.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“I made decisions under pressure.”
“With my property.”
“For our future.”
“No.”
My voice shook, but I didn’t care.
“You don’t get to call theft a future.”
Dominic stared at me for several seconds.
Then something surprising happened.
His face softened.
The anger disappeared.
For a moment, he looked like the man I had married.
“Audrey.”
He stepped closer.
Security moved, but I raised my hand.
Dominic’s eyes filled.
“I’m scared.”
That almost destroyed me.
Because I believed him.
Not his explanations.
His fear.
“I built too fast,” he whispered. “I thought the next project would cover the previous one. Then costs exploded, lenders tightened, investors panicked. I had employees depending on me. Two hundred families.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because your father would have known.”
Dad said nothing.
Dominic looked toward him.
“He was waiting for me to fail.”
“No,” Dad replied. “I was waiting for you to stop lying.”
Dominic ignored him.
He looked at me.
“I was going to put everything back.”
“The eighty thousand?”
“Yes.”
“The house?”
“Yes.”
“The car?”
“Yes.”
“The five million?”
His face went still.
“I didn’t forge Charles’s signature.”
“Did your mother?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then how did the request happen?”
“I don’t know.”
Again.
Again.
Again.
Three years of marriage had apparently been built on those three words.
Dominic stepped closer to my bed.
“We can go home. I’ll explain everything.”
“No.”
“Tomorrow.”
“No.”
“Give me twenty-four hours.”
“You gave me twenty dollars.”
That stopped him.
The room became silent.
I reached toward the small plastic bag on the bedside table.
Inside it was the same twenty-dollar bill he had handed me outside the hospital.
I had kept it.
I held it out.
He stared at the money.
“Take it.”
His face changed.
“Audrey—”
“Take your twenty dollars.”
He didn’t move.
So I let the bill fall onto the floor between us.
“That is the last thing I’m accepting from you without knowing what it costs.”
Dominic looked at the bill.
Then at me.
Something in his expression hardened permanently.
“Fine.”
He turned toward the door.
Then stopped.
“You want a war because you’re angry?”
“No.”
“You think Charles can protect you from everything?”
“I don’t need protection from everything.”
I looked straight at him.
“Just you.”
He left.
Vivian did not come upstairs.
Later, we learned she was sitting in the hospital parking lot.
Watching the entrance.
Waiting.
For what, nobody knew.
At 1:12 a.m., Dad took Noah and me to his home.
My childhood bedroom had been converted into a guest room years earlier, but someone had already placed a bassinet beside the bed.
Dad’s housekeeper, Elena, hugged me without asking questions.
I cried anyway.
At 3:00 a.m., I fed Noah while rain tapped against the windows.
For the first time since my surgery, no one told me I was being dramatic.
No one sighed when the baby cried.
No one reminded me that other women recovered faster.
I looked down at my son and whispered, “We’re going to be okay.”
I wanted to believe it.
At 6:40 the next morning, Martin called.
Dominic had emptied his office during the night.
At 7:15, Mercer Development’s chief financial officer resigned.
At 7:32, the board called an emergency meeting.
At 8:03, my father received an email from an anonymous address.
It contained one sentence.
If Audrey wants to know where her money went, ask Dominic who Evelyn is.
Attached was a photograph.
Dominic stood outside a hotel.
Beside him was a woman holding a little girl’s hand.
May you like
The girl looked about four.
And she had Dominic’s eyes.
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