Chapter 10 - The Empty Nursery
Della woke beneath painted stars.
For one confused moment, she believed she was inside the nursery she and Caleb had prepared.
Then she saw the restraints around her wrists.
The room had no windows.
A camera watched from the ceiling.
Beside the bed stood an ultrasound machine, medical supplies, and a clear infant bassinet.
Terror flooded her.
She pulled against the restraints.
The door opened.
Cordelia entered carrying a glass of water.
“Where is Damian?”
“Probably tearing apart the city.”
“Let me go.”
Cordelia placed the water on a table.
“You have spent your entire life expecting the world to reward you for being good. You saved a dying man, married a gentle accountant, carried trays for people who never learned your name.”
She smiled faintly.
“And look where goodness brought you.”
Della forced her breathing to remain steady.
“What buyer?”
Cordelia’s expression sharpened.
“You heard Sofia.”
“You sell babies.”
“We relocate children into families capable of providing exceptional lives.”
“You steal them from vulnerable women.”
“We correct accidents of circumstance.”
Della stared at her.
“My daughter is not an accident.”
Cordelia glanced at her belly.
“So you know it’s a girl.”
Della regretted the words immediately.
Dr. Navarro had confirmed the sex privately at the hotel. That information was not in the public records.
Cordelia stepped closer.
“The buyers requested a healthy girl with no known genetic conditions. Your medical profile was ideal.”
“You planned to kill me after delivery.”
“Maternal complications occur every day.”
Della swallowed her rage.
“Why push me into the mirror if you needed the baby alive?”
“I needed your belongings searched after you were arrested for assaulting me. You stepped away at the wrong moment. I lost my temper.”
The casual admission was worse than shouting.
“And Caleb?”
“Caleb was sentimental. He believed discovering crimes obligated him to become heroic.”
“You drove him off the road.”
Cordelia’s eyes held no remorse.
“He was warned.”
Della turned her face away, unwilling to let Cordelia see her cry.
The door opened again.
Silas Vance entered with a doctor in blue scrubs.
“We need to move her,” Silas said.
Cordelia frowned. “The facility is secure.”
“Damian found the delivery records in Queens.”
“How?”
“Because you left his sister alive.”
“I was told she died in the fire.”
Silas looked at his daughter with contempt.
“You are often told what prevents you from thinking.”
Cordelia’s face tightened.
For the first time, Della saw the truth beneath their relationship.
Cordelia’s cruelty had been cultivated by a father who considered affection weakness and failure unforgivable.
That did not excuse her.
But it explained why she reacted to humiliation with violence.
The doctor approached Della with a syringe.
“What is that?”
“A sedative.”
“No.”
Silas nodded.
The doctor injected medication into the IV line.
Della fought to remain conscious.
As the room blurred, she heard Cordelia arguing.
“She is only twenty-one weeks. We cannot deliver yet.”
“We are not delivering,” Silas replied. “We are transferring her.”
“To whom?”
“Our partners overseas.”
Della let her eyes close, pretending the drug had taken effect.
The dosage was lower than expected. Perhaps they feared harming the baby.
She listened.
Silas mentioned a private airfield.
A departure at midnight.
Cordelia left the room first.
The doctor checked Della’s pulse, then leaned near her ear.
“Stay still,” she whispered.
Della almost reacted.
The doctor slipped something small beneath her hand.
A scalpel blade.
“My sister’s baby disappeared through this network,” the woman whispered. “I have been waiting three years to find proof.”
She tightened Della’s restraints loosely.
“When the alarm sounds, run through the laundry corridor.”
“What alarm?”
The doctor looked toward the camera.
“The one Damian Vale is about to create.”
Seconds later, the building shook.
Lights flickered.
Gunfire erupted somewhere above them.
Della cut through the first restraint.
The door burst open.
Not Damian.
Detective Pike entered with blood across his shirt.
“You,” Della whispered.
His wounded hand held a pistol.
“Get up.”
“The restraints—”
He tore them free and dragged her into the hallway.
Smoke poured through the ceiling vents.
Doctors and armed guards ran in both directions.
Pike forced Della toward an elevator.
“Silas ordered you moved before Vale reaches this floor.”
The elevator doors opened.
Cordelia stood inside.
She looked at Pike.
Then at Della.
“Where is my father?”
“Already heading to the airfield.”
Cordelia stepped out.
“He left me?”
Pike said nothing.
Cordelia laughed once, but the sound broke in the middle.
All her loyalty, all her violence, all the crimes committed to prove she deserved Silas’s approval—and he had abandoned her the moment Damian arrived.
Gunshots echoed from the stairwell.
Pike raised his weapon toward the sound.
Cordelia pulled a small pistol from beneath her jacket and shot him in the back.
Della recoiled.
Pike collapsed.
Cordelia took his weapon and grabbed Della’s arm.
“Move.”
“Why?”
“Because my father left both of us here to die.”
They entered the laundry corridor.
At the far end, Damian appeared through the smoke.
His suit was torn. Blood ran from a cut above his eye.
When he saw Cordelia holding Della, he raised his gun.
Cordelia pressed Pike’s weapon against Della’s side.
“Put it down.”
Damian’s gaze found Della’s.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Baby?”
“Moving.”
Relief crossed his face.
Cordelia’s hand shook.
“My father is going to the private airfield.”
Damian kept his gun raised.
“Let her go.”
“I need protection.”
“You murdered Caleb Marsh.”
“I have information.”
“So did Caleb.”
Cordelia’s composure fractured.
“I can give you Silas. Every account. Every buyer. Every judge.”
Della looked at her.
Cordelia had built her life around the belief that she could always negotiate from someone else’s suffering.
Even now, she held a gun against a pregnant woman while asking to be rescued.
“You still don’t understand,” Della said.
Cordelia glanced at her.
Della drove the scalpel blade into Cordelia’s forearm.
The gun fired into the ceiling.
Damian crossed the corridor and knocked the weapon away.
Cordelia fell against the wall.
He pulled Della into his arms.
For one second, all the violence around them disappeared.
“You came,” she whispered.
“There is nowhere you could be taken that I would not follow.”
Federal agents reached the corridor and restrained Cordelia.
As they led her away, she looked at Della.
“You think he can give you a happy ending?”
Della held Damian’s gaze.
“No,” she said. “I think I’ll build my own.”
An agent approached Damian.
“We intercepted Vance’s convoy.”
“Is Silas in custody?”
The agent’s expression answered first.
“The convoy was empty.”
Damian’s phone rang.
Silas appeared on the screen through a live video call.
Behind him stood Sofia, bound to a chair at the edge of the private airfield.
Silas pressed a gun against her head.
May you like
“You took my daughter,” he said.
“So I took your sister.”
