Chapter 4 - The Phantom in the Nursery
The private trauma bay on the top floor of Vance Medical Center was a flurry of controlled chaos. Top obstetricians and hypothermia specialists worked under high-intensity warming lights while Carter stood outside the glass wall, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, his knuckles white.
Hours stretched into an agonizing eternity.
Finally, the lead surgeon stepped out, pulling off her mask. "She is a miracle, Mr. Vance. If you had reached her five minutes later, her heart would have stopped. We performed an emergency Cesarean section."
Carter’s chest heaved. "And the infants?"
The doctor smiled faintly. "A boy and a girl. They are premature at thirty-two weeks and currently in the NICU warming incubators, but their vital signs are astonishingly strong. Grace survived through sheer motherly willpower."
Carter entered the quiet recovery room an hour later. Grace lay beneath layers of heated blankets, an IV drip warming her blood. The color was slowly returning to her cheeks, though her eyes were heavy with exhaustion and trauma.
"You saved us," she whispered, looking up at the man who had once been her husband’s bitterest enemy.
Carter pulled a chair beside her bed, his stern expression softening. "You saved yourself, Grace. You triggered the safety relay I installed on your specs seven years ago. I just followed the light."
Grace’s hand trembled on the sheet. Tears spilled over her lashes. "Derek... he locked me in. He looked into my eyes through the glass and told me the insurance paid triple. He wanted us dead, Carter."
Carter’s jaw clenched so hard a muscle twitched near his temple. "I know. My investigators pulled the insurance filings an hour ago. He placed a three-million-dollar policy on your life last month, with an accidental death multiplier."
"He thinks I’m dead," Grace breathed, the horror of it washing over her again.
Carter leaned closer, his dark eyes burning with a dangerous, calculating light. "Let him keep thinking that."
Grace blinked. "What?"
"If he knows you survived, he will run, or his high-powered lawyers will spin this into an equipment malfunction," Carter explained, his voice smooth and terrifyingly calm. "Right now, Derek believes he committed the perfect crime. He is currently at home, preparing to file the police report in the morning after his 'discovery' of your body."
Carter reached out, gently covering her hand with his own. "Let me handle the legal record. We will declare Grace Bennett missing under suspicious circumstances. We will secure your twins in my private wing where no one can touch them. And while Derek celebrates his fake windfall, we will build a trap so absolute he will never see the light of day again."
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Grace looked at the man holding her hand—a billionaire warrior who had every reason to hate the Bennett name, yet was shielding her children with his immense wealth and power.
"Do it," Grace whispered, her eyes hardening from fragile victim to lethal survivor. "Make him pay for every breath I almost lost."
