Chapter 2 - THE BABY’S HEARTBEAT
The drive to Saint Catherine Medical Center lasted fourteen minutes.
It felt longer than every year of my life combined.
I sat beside Daphne while the paramedic monitored her blood pressure and the baby’s heartbeat.
The rhythm remained present but elevated.
Daphne kept apologizing.
That frightened me almost as much as the monitors.
“I should have called you sooner.”
“You should never have needed to call me.”
“I knew how much it meant to you to have Rosalind close.”
“My happiness was not worth your silence.”
“She said you would choose her.”
I looked down.
“What did I do that made you believe that?”
“You defended her every time I mentioned the office.”
I had.
When Daphne said drawers had been opened, I reminded her that Rosalind was adjusting to a new home.
When she complained that Mason questioned staff about company accounts, I called him curious.
When she asked me to remove my mother’s bank access, I accused her of making money feel more important than family.
Rosalind never needed to order me to silence Daphne.
She only needed to behave badly and wait for me to explain it.
At the hospital, Dr. Helen Brooks ordered immediate monitoring.
The baby showed no sign of placental separation. Daphne had abdominal tenderness, dehydration, and elevated blood pressure.
She needed observation.
Our daughter was alive.
For several minutes, that was the only truth I could hold.
I pressed my forehead against Daphne’s hand.
“I am sorry.”
“Do not make promises while you are frightened.”
“What promise?”
“That you will fix everything.”
She knew me too well.
I built a company by treating every crisis as a system waiting to be controlled.
This was different.
My mother had harmed my wife inside our home while my brother stole the company we built.
There was no purchase order that could repair trust.
“What do you need from me right now?”
“Stay.”
So I stayed.
Naomi Pierce arrived before sunset.
She had served as our corporate attorney for nine years and Daphne’s personal counsel for three.
I had not known about the second arrangement.
Daphne explained why.
“When I found the first copied signature, I needed advice that did not pass through company management.”
“Why did you not trust management?”
“Because someone inside Rivera approved Mason’s building access.”
Naomi placed an encrypted tablet on the hospital table.
The security footage had been copied to three independent servers.
The mansion access logs were preserved.
Every company account connected to Mason, Rosalind, and unknown external devices had been frozen.
“Can they remove me as chief executive?” I asked.
Naomi did not soften her answer.
“They can try.”
She showed us a board notice filed that afternoon.
It requested an emergency meeting at nine the next morning.
The notice claimed I had concealed substantial financial losses and removed five hundred thousand dollars from company reserves.
“The cash from my safe was personal.”
“That will not matter initially,” Naomi said. “Mason deposited it into an account bearing the Rivera name.”
“Which account?”
“Rivera Emergency Procurement.”
I had never created it.
The account had opened two months earlier using copied incorporation papers.
Someone transferred the stolen cash into it, then created documents showing I withdrew the money from company operations.
The gold bars were listed as collateral for an undisclosed loan.
The scheme was designed to make the theft look like evidence against me.
Naomi continued.
“Mason also submitted a medical report claiming you suffer from untreated combat related trauma.”
“I was never in combat.”
The report used a military style format, copied federal seals, and described a six year Army Reserve history that did not exist.
It claimed I experienced paranoia, violent episodes, and impaired judgment.
“Why create something so easily disproved?”
“Because the board does not need to believe it forever,” Daphne said. “Only long enough to suspend you.”
She asked Naomi for the black folder.
Inside were copies of forged custody papers and a partial board authorization.
The blue page was missing.
“What was on it?” I asked.
“A payment agreement between Mason and someone identified only by initials.”
“Which initials?”
“C V.”
I knew one executive with those initials.
Caleb Voss.
Chief financial officer of Rivera Medical Supply.
My father’s oldest friend.
The man who sat beside me at every board meeting.
Naomi did not accuse him.
“Initials are not proof.”
Daphne nodded.
“But the payment schedule referenced Project Meridian.”
I recognized that name.
Project Meridian was a confidential forensic review of our international procurement division.
Three months earlier, an internal auditor found inconsistencies involving surgical monitoring devices purchased through a Nevada distributor.
Caleb argued that the differences came from exchange rates and emergency shipping costs.
I approved a limited audit.
Then Caleb delayed it twice.
The full review was scheduled to begin Monday morning.
Mason’s board meeting was scheduled for Friday.
“They want me removed before the audit,” I said.
Daphne looked toward the monitor beside her bed.
“That is what the blue page suggested.”
“Where is it?”
“I hid it inside your father’s trust envelope.”
“The envelope from the foyer?”
She nodded.
“Rosalind found the folder but not the page.”
Naomi spoke carefully.
“Rosalind may still have the envelope.”
My mansion security team searched the house.
The trust envelope was not in the foyer, office, safe, or Rosalind’s bedroom.
Then the camera feed showed her slipping something beneath the lining of her handbag while paramedics entered.
Security had allowed her to leave with personal medication and identification.
Her handbag had gone with her.
Rosalind possessed the missing payment agreement.
She also had access to the original forged custody papers.
My phone vibrated.
A message from Mason appeared.
COME TO THE BOARD MEETING ALONE OR THE WORLD LEARNS YOUR WIFE IS UNFIT TO RAISE YOUR CHILD.
Daphne read it over my shoulder.
Her breathing changed.
I took her hand.
“He cannot take our baby.”
Naomi looked at me.
“Do not say what you cannot guarantee.”
The legal papers were false.
The people behind them had money, company access, and medical contacts.
They had prepared a physician’s declaration claiming Daphne suffered pregnancy related psychosis.
A second report described me as dangerous.
If both parents were declared temporarily incapable, Rosalind intended to request emergency guardianship.
As guardian of our child, she could attempt to influence the family trust holding seventeen percent of Rivera Medical Supply.
The baby had not been born.
May you like
They were already using her as a corporate weapon.
Continue to the next part: The emergency board meeting begins with Mason displaying the stolen cash, but Daphne’s original ownership records reveal that Ethan never controlled the company alone.
