Chapter 14 - THE LAST VISIT AS THEIR FATHER
Grant entered the NICU in a wheelchair.
A guard remained behind him.
His shoulder was immobilized.
His face had lost the polished confidence I once mistook for strength.
He stopped several feet from the incubators.
Noah slept beneath a knitted blue cap.
Elise’s fingers rested beside her face.
Grant began crying.
I did not comfort him.
He looked at me.
“May I go closer?”
“No.”
He nodded.
The answer hurt him.
He accepted it.
That mattered less than he hoped.
“I wanted a different life,” he said.
“You wanted a life without responsibility.”
“I thought the twins would destroy the company.”
“They were unborn children.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“I do not have another sentence.”
“Then stop asking words to do what actions cannot.”
He looked at Noah.
“I did not expect your medication to cause an abruption.”
“You expected it to make me ill.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“So you would step away from the company.”
“And depend on you.”
“Yes.”
His honesty was ugly.
It was still necessary.
“Did you know Vanessa was working for Lang?”
“Not at first.”
“When did you learn?”
“Before the birth.”
“Why stay with her?”
“She had the loan documents.”
“She had evidence of the medication switch.”
“She said she would expose me.”
“You were being blackmailed.”
“Yes.”
“But you still entered this room with her.”
He closed his eyes.
“I wanted you to sign before everything collapsed.”
“You called them a burden.”
“I thought cruelty would make you stop fighting.”
I looked toward the incubators.
“You never understood me.”
“No.”
Grant asked whether the children would carry his name.
I had already filed emergency birth corrections.
“Noah Theodore Vale.”
“Elise Grace Vale.”
He flinched.
“Will you tell them about me?”
“Yes.”
His eyes lifted.
“I will tell them you were their father.”
“I will tell them you chose money over their safety.”
“I will tell them you helped people hurt us.”
“I will also tell them you stood between Noah and a bullet.”
“I will not turn you into a monster.”
“I will not turn you into a hero.”
Grant covered his face.
That was the closest thing to mercy I could offer.
The guard moved the wheelchair toward the door.
Grant looked back once.
Then he signed the cooperation agreement.
His testimony connected Victor Lang to the defective valve cover-up.
It linked Helix Meridian to Dr. Pierce, Julian, Vanessa, Derek, and Monica.
Federal agents arrested Victor at a private airport.
He carried three passports and twenty million dollars in transferable bonds.
Inside his briefcase was a purchase agreement for Vale Health Holdings.
The buyer was not Helix Meridian.
It was a trust registered in my name.
Someone had planned to make it appear that I engineered the entire takeover.
May you like
The trustee signature belonged to my mother.
She had been dead for fourteen years.
