Chapter 4 - The Poisoned Bloodline
“You were never supposed to survive the birth, Emily.”The room fell into a suffocating silence. The steady beep-beep-beep of the heart monitor seemed to speed up, echoing my pounding heart.
"Your father?" I gasped. "Emily, you told me you were raised by a single mother in foster care!"
"I was!" Emily sobbed, clutching my hand so hard her fingernails dug into my skin. "My mother died when I was six. I grew up in the system. I never knew who my father was until three weeks before Noah was born. A lawyer contacted me. He brought DNA results. Richard Vance is worth $400 million, Ethan. He has no legitimate heirs—his only daughter, Dr. Vance, cut ties with him fifteen years ago."
She paused, gasping for air as a nurse stepped in to adjust her IV line. Once the nurse stepped out, Emily continued, her voice trembling.
"Richard is dying of pancreatic cancer. He wanted to make amends. He drafted a new will leaving 70% of his estate to me and my child. But his current wife—his second wife, Victoria—found out."
Lightbulbs exploded in my head. "Victoria..."
"Victoria contacted your mother, Ethan," Emily revealed, tears dripping onto her pillow. "Your mother has had massive gambling debts for years. Victoria offered to pay off all of Linda’s debts, plus give her fifty thousand dollars in cash, if Linda ensured that neither I nor my baby survived the postpartum recovery. They wanted it to look like natural complications—postpartum sepsis and sudden infant death syndrome."
My mother. My own mother had put a price tag on the lives of my wife and my seven-day-old baby. $50,000 and a cleared gambling tab.
Suddenly, the door to the ICU burst open.
Two men in dark suits stepped into the room, followed by an older woman draped in a fur coat, her eyes cold as ice, her lips painted a blood-red shade.
It was Victoria Vance.
"Well, well," Victoria said, stepping inside and pulling off her leather gloves. "I was hoping I’d find you alone, Emily. But I see your little working-class husband is here to play hero."
I immediately stepped between Victoria’s armed bodyguards and my wife’s bed. "Get the hell out of here before I kill you with my bare hands."
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Victoria chuckled softly, a chilling, cruel sound. "Oh, Ethan. Don't be theatrical. You're a warehouse worker. You move boxes for a living. You don't have the power, the money, or the intelligence to stand against me. Your pathetic mother already proved how easily your family can be bought."
She stepped closer, leaning over my shoulder toward Emily. "The police won't touch me. I have judges in my pocket. But you... you're going to sign a waiver renouncing all claims to the Vance estate today. Or your precious little boy in the NICU won't make it through the night."
