newborn to her mother.’
Dominic looked offended.
‘This is a family dispute.’
‘You’re in a maternity unit,’ Tessa replied.
‘And the patient has clearly withdrawn permission for you to hold her baby.’
Eleanor lifted her chin.
‘Our attorneys have handled everything.’
‘You can speak to the hospital’s legal department,’ Tessa said.
‘But you cannot remove an infant from this ward based on a document nobody has verified.’
Dominic turned toward me.
‘You should understand something before you make a scene.
The apartment is leased through my company.
Your supplementary bank card has already been canceled, and the joint savings account has been emptied.’
I looked at him, stunned by the precision of his cruelty.
He had planned this before I went into labor.
He had prepared the paperwork, arranged for Chloe to arrive, and taken away what he believed were my last sources of security.
He wanted me exhausted, frightened, and too poor to fight.
But he’d made one mistake.
He left the envelope within my reach.
I pulled out the document and examined the notary section.
The date was May 14.
The location was Reno, Nevada.
According to the certificate, I had personally appeared before the notary that afternoon.
Except I hadn’t been in Nevada.
I had been in Boston, speaking at a fundraising event for an art preservation nonprofit.
The entire presentation had been streamed online.
There were photographs, registration records, and hundreds of people who could confirm my location.
I put the document down.
A real legal agreement could not be explained away merely because I disliked it.
But this certificate described an event that had never occurred.
That was something investigators could examine.
I looked at Tessa.
‘Would you call my emergency contact, please?’
Dominic laughed.
‘Who exactly are you planning to call?’
‘My father.’
He rolled his eyes.
‘And what’s he supposed to do?’
I swallowed.
‘His name is Samuel Sterling.’
Tessa stopped moving.
‘Samuel Sterling?’
I nodded.
‘The same one.’
Her gaze shifted toward a framed photograph in the hallway.
It showed an older man standing beside several doctors beneath the sign for the Miriam Sterling Maternity Wing.
I watched her expression change.
‘I’ll call him right now,’ she said.
For the first time, Eleanor looked frightened.
She recognized the name too.
—
My father was Samuel Sterling, the founder of Sterling Infrastructure, an engineering and logistics company with offices across three continents.
He had built bridges, freight terminals, hospitals, and entire industrial districts.
Financial magazines liked to describe him as a billionaire who rarely appeared at parties.
But the reason Tessa knew him had nothing to do with his wealth.
Nineteen years earlier, my mother, Miriam Sterling, had died after childbirth complications were not recognized and treated quickly enough.
I had been thirteen.
I remembered my father returning from the hospital with an empty overnight bag and sitting on the kitchen floor because he couldn’t bring himself to enter their bedroom.
For years afterward, he had funded maternal safety research, independent patient advocates, and legal assistance for vulnerable parents.
The Sterling Family Advocacy Center had become one of the best-known organizations of its kind in the state.
Harborview’s maternity wing had been renamed in my mother’s memory following a major donation.
But being Samuel Sterling’s daughter had never felt simple.
Growing up, I
