Chapter 2 - The Digital Ghost
"Daniel?" My voice was a dry, broken rasp.
He jolted, snapping the laptop shut, and rushed to my side. He hit the call button for the nurse before taking my hand, pressing it against his cheek.
"The twins?" I sobbed, the terror crashing over me all at once. "Where are they? Are they—"
"They're alive," he said quickly, though his eyes were red and swollen. "They’re in the NICU. They're small, and it's going to be a tough fight, but the doctors say they are strong. Just like their mother."
I let out a ragged breath, falling back against the pillows. We wept together for a long time, the trauma of the last twenty-four hours finally spilling over. But as the adrenaline faded, a cold, hard anger began to take its place.
"Vanessa," I whispered.
Daniel’s jaw tightened. The tenderness in his eyes vanished, replaced by an icy fury. He reached for the laptop he had been staring at when I woke up.
"She went to the police," Daniel said. "She filed a report claiming you assaulted her. She showed them scratch marks on her arms. My mother hired the best defense attorney in the state for her. They’re trying to build a case that you had a psychotic break."
"The camera," I said, my heart pounding. "She smashed it. But..."
"She didn't know about the server upgrade," Daniel finished for me.
He opened the laptop and turned the screen toward me. There it was, in crystal-clear, 4K resolution. The footage of Vanessa punching me in the stomach. The audio of her screaming, "Give me the code or I’ll finish this!" The horrific moment she dragged me by my hair as my water broke.
"I'm giving this to the police," Daniel said. "She's going to prison. But that’s not the worst part."
I stared at him, confused. "What could be worse than her trying to kill my babies?"
Daniel clicked out of the video player and opened a hidden encrypted folder on his desktop. "When you told me she demanded the $150,000 trust code, it didn't make sense. Vanessa gets a massive allowance from my family. So, while you were in surgery, I hired an emergency forensic IT team to dig into our servers."
He turned the screen again. It was a labyrinth of offshore bank statements and forged wire transfers.
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"Vanessa wasn't just trying to steal from our unborn children," Daniel said, his voice shaking. "She was trying to cover her tracks. She’s embezzled over $2.5 million from my company over the last two years. And she forged my signature on every single document. If the IRS or the board found out... I would be the one going to federal prison."
🔥 HOOK: Just as Daniel finished speaking, the hospital room door swung open. Standing there, flanked by two armed security guards, was Daniel’s mother, Eleanor. And she was holding a manila envelope that would change everything.
