## CHAPTER 7 ### The Baby They Tried to Take
I woke to the sound of my daughter crying.
At first, I thought I was dreaming.
The cry was thin and distant, like a sound traveling through water. My body felt impossibly heavy. My mouth was dry. Pain burned across my lower abdomen.
Then the cry came again.
Real.
My eyes opened.
White ceiling.
Soft blue light.
A hospital room.
Rafael was asleep in a chair beside my bed, his head resting against the mattress. One of his hands covered mine.
Daniel stood near the window.
Or Michael.
I could not tell until he turned.
The crescent scar beneath his eyebrow was slightly shorter.
Daniel.
“You’re awake,” he said.
Rafael lifted his head immediately.
“Elena?”
I tried to sit.
Pain stopped me.
“The baby.”
“She’s alive,” Rafael said. “She’s in the neonatal unit. She’s small, but she’s breathing on her own.”
Tears filled my eyes.
“I heard her.”
“They brought her past the room twenty minutes ago.”
“What happened?”
Rafael looked toward Daniel.
“The nurse injected a sedative into your IV.”
“Vivian.”
“Yes.”
“Why was she dressed as a nurse?”
“We don’t know.”
“Where is she?”
“She escaped.”
I remembered the operating room going dark.
“Did she hurt Lucia?”
“No. Dr. Chen noticed the injection almost immediately. They replaced your line and performed the cesarean.”
My hand moved across the bandage beneath the blanket.
“She was born?”
“At 5:18 a.m.”
Rafael reached for his phone and showed me a photograph.
Lucia lay beneath a clear incubator hood, wrapped in a white blanket with a tiny pink cap on her head. Tubes surrounded her, but her eyes were open.
“She has your mouth,” Rafael whispered.
“She looks angry.”
“She screamed at every doctor in the room.”
A laugh escaped me and became a sob.
Rafael pressed my hand to his cheek.
For a moment, I let him.
Then I remembered the contract.
I pulled away.
His face fell, but he did not protest.
“Did they test the sedative?” I asked.
Daniel nodded.
“It was propofol. Too much could have stopped your breathing.”
“So Vivian tried to kill me.”
“Possibly.”
“What does that mean?”
“The syringe was labeled with your correct surgical dosage. She may have been trying to ensure you remained unconscious longer than expected.”
“Why?”
“To access Lucia,” Rafael said.
Fear pierced through the medication fog.
“Where is she?”
“In a secured neonatal room with two police officers outside.”
“I want to see her.”
“The doctors said you need another hour.”
“I want to see her now.”
Rafael stood.
“I’ll get Dr. Chen.”
When he left, Daniel moved closer.
“How much do you remember?”
“Everything.”
“Vivian said Arturo didn’t have her.”
“We found the underground nursery empty,” Daniel said.
“Then who was in the photographs?”
“Michael believes the images were taken earlier.”
“Where is he?”
“Gone.”
“Gone where?”
“He left the hospital during surgery.”
“Why?”
“He received a message from Vivian.”
Daniel showed me a screenshot.
BRING THE BLOOD FILE TO PIER NINE. COME ALONE IF YOU WANT THE ORIGINALS.
“What is the blood file?”
“The DNA evidence Arturo collected.”
“Michael has it?”
“He claims he does.”
“You don’t believe him.”
“I believe he has some evidence. I don’t know whether any of it is genuine.”
“You look exactly alike.”
“That proves we share genes. It does not prove his story.”
“You knew the lake memory.”
“So did he.”
“Could Mom have told him?”
“Maybe.”
I studied my brother.
“Did you ever suspect you were adopted?”
“No.”
“Do you believe Camila is your mother?”
His expression closed.
“I believe Arturo wants us to focus on identity instead of evidence.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It is the only one I have.”
Dr. Chen entered with Rafael. She checked my incision and explained that Lucia weighed four pounds, six ounces. Her lungs were underdeveloped but functioning. She might remain hospitalized for several weeks.
“You experienced significant blood loss,” Dr. Chen said. “You need rest.”
“I need to see my daughter.”
She finally agreed.
Rafael helped me into a wheelchair.
Two detectives accompanied us through locked doors to the neonatal intensive care unit. Cameras covered every hallway. Officers checked identification twice.
Lucia’s incubator stood in a private corner.
Nothing in my life had prepared me for how small she would look.
Her fingers were thinner than matchsticks. Her chest rose and fell rapidly. A sensor glowed against one foot.
I placed my hand through the opening in the incubator.
Her fingers closed around the tip of mine.
Everything else disappeared.
The estate.
The trust.
Rafael’s lies.
Daniel’s return.
All that remained was the fierce pressure of my daughter’s hand.
“Hi, Lucia,” I whispered. “I’m your mother.”
Rafael stood behind me.
When I looked up, tears were running down his face.
“You can touch her,” I said.
He hesitated.
I did not forgive him.
But Lucia was his daughter, regardless of the contract that brought us together.
He placed one finger beside mine.
Lucia grabbed him too.
For several minutes, we existed as a family.
Then an alarm sounded.
Not Lucia’s monitor.
The unit’s security alarm.
The lights over the exit turned red.
A voice announced a lockdown.
Rafael moved in front of the incubator.
Two officers ran toward the corridor.
A nurse checked the doors.
“What happened?” I asked.
“No one leaves the unit during a security alert.”
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
Vivian’s voice whispered through the speaker.
“You’re looking in the wrong incubator.”
My blood turned cold.
I looked at Lucia.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing to your baby.”
“Then what are you talking about?”
“Check the identification band.”
Rafael examined the band around Lucia’s ankle.
It read:
MARTIN, ELENA
INFANT FEMALE
5:18 A.M.
The assumed name used for my hospital transfer.
“That is her,” Rafael said.
Vivian laughed softly.
“Check the blood type.”
I demanded the nurse verify it.
She accessed the chart.
“O negative,” she said.
I was A positive.
Rafael was O negative, which meant Lucia could be O negative.
“That proves nothing,” I told Vivian.
“Correct. So ask why the baby born in Operating Room Four was recorded as five pounds, two ounces.”
Dr. Chen had told us four pounds, six ounces.
I turned toward the nurse.
Her face paled as she searched the chart.
“The surgical record says five pounds, two ounces.”
Rafael gripped the phone.
“Where is our daughter?”
Vivian’s voice remained calm.
“Your daughter is exactly where Arturo planned for her to be.”
“Where?”
“With the woman who gave birth in Operating Room Three.”
The nurse searched the system.
“There was no surgery in Operating Room Three.”
“Not officially,” Vivian said.
The call ended.
Detective Moreno arrived and ordered the entire unit sealed.
Dr. Chen reviewed delivery records.
During the power outage, two premature girls had been brought into the neonatal unit within minutes of each other.
One was Lucia.
The other had no official admission record.
Hospital cameras showed a masked nurse switching two bassinets in the recovery corridor.
The woman’s identity badge belonged to an employee who had died three years earlier.
Both babies were still inside the hospital.
But no one knew which one was mine.
The police ordered emergency DNA tests.
Results would take hours.
While Rafael argued with the hospital administrator, I remained beside the child in the incubator.
She continued holding my finger.
My heart insisted she was mine.
Then I saw something beneath her pink cap.
A small dark mark behind her left ear.
Lucia had appeared in dozens of ultrasound images, but no scan could have shown a surface mark.
Camila had once told me every Valdés baby was born with a small crescent birthmark somewhere on the body.
The mark behind the infant’s ear was shaped like a perfect crescent.
Daniel approached slowly.
“What is it?”
I pointed.
He stared at the mark.
Then he turned toward Rafael.
“If Michael’s story is true, Lucia is biologically a Hart. She should not carry the Valdés birthmark.”
“What are you saying?” I asked.
Daniel’s eyes moved toward the locked nursery at the far end of the unit.
“I’m saying this baby may be Arturo’s missing granddaughter.”
From inside that locked room, another infant began to cry.
May you like
And every monitor in the unit suddenly went black.
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