Chapter 4 - The Billionaire's ShadowThe air in the hallway turned instantly toxic.
I stood frozen behind the nurses' station, my hand instinctively pressing against the pocket of my lab coat where Mariana’s crumpled letter rested like a live grenade.
"Mr. Vance," I managed to say, forcing my jaw to lock so my teeth wouldn't chatter. "What are you doing here at three in the morning?"
Victor Vance tilted his head, his smile never reaching his eyes. He adjusted the cuffs of his bespoke Italian suit. "A philanthropist's work never sleeps, Daniel. When a crisis hits my favorite hospital—especially one involving children—I like to stay informed. My security team notified me that a woman from the El Sauz district was brought in dead, accompanied by an undocumented minor."
He stepped closer, his cologne—expensive, sharp, and suffocating—filling the space between us.
"Tell me, did she speak?" Vance asked softly, his voice dropping an octave. "Did she mention me?"
The threat was so thinly veiled it was practically transparent. He knew. He knew Mariana was here, he knew she had written something, and he was here to clean up the mess before the sun came up.
"She died before she regained consciousness," I lied, looking him straight in the eye. "She code-blue'd the moment she hit the ICU. Total system failure."
Vance studied my face for five agonizing seconds. Every tick of the wall clock sounded like a ticking bomb. Finally, a thin, sardonic smile touched the corner of his lips.
"A pity," Vance murmured. "Tragic how fragile human beings can be when they stray too far from... proper supervision. Isn't that right, Nurse?" He glanced sideways at Lupita, who shrank back, clutching her clipboard like a shield.
"If you'll excuse me," I said, stepping out from behind the counter, my body acting purely on defensive instinct. "I have critical neonatal patients to monitor."
"Of course. The twins," Vance said smoothly, turning to walk alongside me down the hallway toward the NICU. "Remarkable survival story, isn't it? A little girl pushing them ten kilometers in a wheelbarrow. Almost cinematic. But children have wild imaginations, Doctor. They make up stories. They invent monsters to cope with trauma."
He stopped right outside the glass window of the neonatal unit.
Inside, Sofia was still sleeping soundly, curled up next to Mateo and Lucía.
Vance stared at her through the glass, his expression unreadable. But I saw the slight tightening of his jaw, the cold calculation in his eyes.
"It would be a terrible shame," Vance whispered, his voice dangerously low, "if someone disrupted that little girl's peace. Accidents happen on country roads all the time, Daniel. People slip. Brakes fail. Wheelbarrows break."
My blood turned to boiling lava. Every fiber of my being screamed at me to shatter the glass, to grab him by his expensive collar and throw him through the wall. That is my daughter.
"Touch her," I whispered back, my voice trembling with suppressed fury, "and you won't need a security team to throw me out. I'll tear you apart with my bare hands."
Vance chuckled—a low, dark sound that sent chills down my spine. He patted my shoulder condescendingly.
"Save your passion for the operating table, Doctor. You'll need it. Because tomorrow morning, child services is going to pay a visit to this hospital, and those three children are going to need a very powerful guardian. And trust me... you don't have the legal standing to fight me."
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He turned and walked away, his bodyguards gliding silently in his wake like sharks circling a bleeding swimmer.
I stood there, staring at the glass, realizing with horrifying clarity that the war had only just begun. And Vance held all the cards—unless I found out what he was hiding before he destroyed us all.
