Chapter 4 - THE ACCIDENT THAT WASN'T
I tried to sit up on my stretcher, ignoring the white-hot pain radiating from my left leg and my abdomen.
“Grant!” I screamed across the corridor.
At the sound of my voice, my husband froze in the middle of the trauma bay, his hand still gripping the metal railing of Vanessa’s gurney. He looked over toward me, his tear-streaked face momentarily dropping its pathetic, grieving mask to reveal a look of sheer, unadulterated panic.
He hadn't expected me to be conscious. He certainly hadn't expected me to be sitting up and coherent in the main triage hallway.
“Claire!” Grant cried out, rushing a few steps toward my gurney before catching himself. He put on a desperate, theatrical display of emotional exhaustion, throwing his hands up in despair. “Thank God! Thank God you’re alive! They told me at the front desk you were in emergency surgery—I was so terrified I’d lose you both—!”
“Don't you dare touch me,” I spat, my voice vibrating with a cold, lethal fury that made Grant physically recoil. “Don't come near me, Grant.”
Vanessa writhed on the incoming gurney, clutching her head and wailing. “My head… oh God, my head is bleeding! Grant, make them stop the pain! Make them check the baby—!”
The trauma nurse pushing Vanessa’s gurney stopped dead in her tracks, looking back and forth between Vanessa and Grant with wide eyes.
“Wait a minute,” the nurse said, her voice dripping with skepticism. “Did you say the baby? Is she pregnant too?”
Grant’s face turned the color of spoiled milk. He opened his mouth, stammering incoherently. “I… what? No! She meant… she meant our baby! Claire’s baby! We’re so stressed, she’s delirious from the shock of the fall!”
“I am not delirious,” I said, swinging my legs off the side of my gurney despite Dr. Singh’s urgent protests. I stood up, leaning heavily against the IV pole, my hospital gown drenched in blood and sweat. I pointed a shaking, blood-stained finger straight at Vanessa’s face. “She was in our house. She is my husband’s mistress. And she is the one who shoved me down a full flight of stairs.”
The two police officers who had been detaining Dr. Keller instantly moved in, surrounding Grant and Vanessa’s gurney with their hands resting near their holstered weapons.
“Mr. Mercer,” the senior officer said, his tone razor-sharp. “Step away from the patient. Ma’am, did you say this woman pushed your wife?”
“She slipped!” Grant shouted, his voice cracking into desperation as he tried to insert himself between the officer and Vanessa. “It was a terrible accident at the top of the stairs! Claire lost her footing during an argument—!”
“An argument about what, Grant?” I interrupted, stepping forward, my eyes locked on his soul. “An argument about Dr. Adrian Keller? An argument about the text message you left on your screen? We need Claire gone before Keller talks. Want to explain that to the officers, husband?”
Grant’s jaw dropped. The color completely drained from his face. He looked over at Dr. Adrian Keller, who was now cowering against the back wall in handcuffs, looking like a cornered rat.
Before Grant could spin another lie, Vanessa let out a shrill, hysterical shriek from her gurney, her self-preservation instinct finally overriding her loyalty to Grant.
“I didn't mean to kill her!” Vanessa screamed, sobbing hysterically as she pointed a bloody finger at Grant. “He told me to do it! He said if I pushed her down the stairs hard enough, the trauma would induce a miscarriage, and we could collect her share of the pre-nup estate before she found out about the surrogate contract!”
The hallway fell into an absolute, vacuum-sealed silence.
Even the blaring heart monitors in the trauma bays seemed to fade into the background.
Grant turned his head slowly toward Vanessa, his expression turning murderous. “You stupid, ungrateful bitch…”
“Mr. Mercer, turn around and put your hands behind your back,” the police officer barked, stepping forward and snapping the cold steel handcuffs around Grant’s wrists before he could lunge across the floor.
As the officers hauled my husband away in cuffs—the man I had loved, trusted, and built an empire with for six years—he didn't look remorseful. He looked angry. Angry that his math hadn't worked out. Angry that I hadn't died on the marble floor.
Dr. Adrian Keller was placed in handcuffs right beside him.
And as the medical staff rushed Vanessa into an emergency trauma room to treat her head wound—and to check the status of whatever secret pregnancy she had apparently been hiding—Dr. Singh gently guided me back onto my gurney, her eyes swimming with unshed tears.
“Claire,” Dr. Singh whispered softly. “Your C-section is prepped. We have to take the twins out right now, before the stress causes total placental failure. Are you ready?”
I looked down at my swollen abdomen, where two tiny, frantic heartbeats were still fighting for survival against the cruelty of the world outside.
They weren't biologically mine. They were the product of a monstrous deception engineered by my husband, his mistress, and my corrupt fertility doctor—using another woman’s eggs, implanted without my consent, to secure some twisted legal or financial advantage under our pre-nuptial agreement.
My heart broke into a million jagged pieces.
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Yet, as I felt a sharp kick against my ribs, a fierce, primal wave of motherhood surged through my veins, washing away the grief and replacing it with pure, unadulterated steel.
“Take them out,” I whispered, gripping Dr. Singh’s hand with absolute resolve. “They are my children. No matter whose DNA made them, they are mine. Save my babies.”
