Chapter 2 - The Medicine Eleanor Called Safe
The emergency department placed me beneath heated blankets while nurses cut away my wet dress.
Roman remained beside the bed until a doctor told him that anger would not stop the contractions.
He stepped back.
He did not leave.
Dr. Amelia Brooks examined the bruises along my arms, the cuts across my scalp, and the swelling around my right ankle.
“Were you restrained?”
“Yes.”
“With rope?”
“Leather straps.”
Roman looked toward me.
I had not told him that part inside the ambulance.
I had been trying to breathe.
The doctor cleaned the places where the scissors had scraped my scalp.
“Any loss of consciousness?”
“I remember waking in the dressing room.”
“You were unconscious before?”
“I became dizzy after swallowing a pill.”
“What pill?”
“White. Small. No marking.”
“Who gave it to you?”
“My mother in law.”
Roman turned away and called his security chief.
“Find Dr. Malcolm Reed. Bring him to the hospital if he is still on the estate.”
The security chief answered quietly.
Roman’s face changed.
“What do you mean he left?”
The estate doctor had driven through the service gate twenty minutes before Roman arrived. The guard log identified his vehicle, but the exit camera recorded only darkness because the lens had been covered.
“Track his phone.”
“It is offline.”
“His car?”
“No signal.”
Roman ended the call and stood near the window.
The fetal monitor tightened around my abdomen. Our daughter’s heartbeat remained present, but every contraction created another uneven dip.
Dr. Brooks ordered blood work, toxicology testing, and continuous observation.
“If the pattern worsens, we may need to deliver tonight.”
Roman’s eyes moved toward her.
“She is only thirty six weeks.”
“Most babies do well at thirty six weeks. What concerns me is the medication and the maternal trauma.”
“I do not want surgery,” I said.
“We are not there yet.”
Roman reached for my hand.
“Whatever protects both of you.”
His voice sounded controlled.
I knew him well enough to hear the terror beneath it.
Two detectives entered after hospital staff reported an assault involving a pregnant patient. Roman’s attorney arrived almost simultaneously.
Martin Hale was not related to us despite the name Eleanor used for several family shell companies. He was sixty seven, silver haired, and had handled Roman’s private legal affairs since Roman took control of Kane Capital.
He placed a secured folder on the counter.
“I have initiated an emergency preservation order for the estate, every internal camera, all medical records, and all devices belonging to Eleanor Kane and Vanessa Kane.”
Roman looked at him.
“Include the house doctor and security staff.”
“Already done.”
One detective asked whether Roman intended to remain during my statement.
I looked at him.
“I want him here.”
The questioning began with the dressing room.
Eleanor invited me upstairs shortly after lunch, claiming she wanted to discuss the nursery arrangements. Vanessa waited beside a salon chair with a white cloth and electric clippers.
I attempted to leave.
The door had been locked.
Dr. Reed gave me the pill after Eleanor said I was upsetting the baby. When I refused, Vanessa held my jaw while Eleanor pushed it between my lips.
The room blurred afterward.
I remembered waking with both wrists strapped to the chair.
Eleanor stood behind me holding scissors.
Vanessa filmed.
A man remained near the window.
I saw only his shoes.
Dark leather.
Rain on the soles.
“He had just come inside,” I said.
“What did he say?” the detective asked.
“That the recording needed to look like a family intervention.”
Roman’s hand tightened around mine.
“What recording?”
“They wanted me to say I was unstable.”
The man placed papers on a side table. Eleanor ordered me to read a statement saying I had become obsessed with leaving Roman, that I feared the Kane family, and that I intended to disappear with the baby.
When I refused, Vanessa cut the first section of hair.
Eleanor finished the rest.
“What were the papers?” Martin asked.
“I saw a medical power form. A trust page. Something about temporary guardianship.”
Roman stood.
“Guardianship of whom?”
“Our daughter.”
The monitor accelerated with my heart rate.
Dr. Brooks ordered everyone to lower their voices.
Martin opened his folder.
Roman and I had signed a prenatal trust four weeks earlier. If one of us died or became incapacitated, the other parent retained full control. No grandparent received authority.
The only exception involved simultaneous incapacity or a court finding that the surviving parent posed a danger.
Eleanor would need both of us removed.
“Why create a statement only against Bianca?” the detective asked.
Martin looked at Roman.
“Because Roman was supposed to sign a separate document tonight.”
“What document?” I asked.
Martin hesitated.
“The Kane Capital succession amendment.”
Roman had scheduled a private board dinner at the estate. He returned early after receiving the message that I was outside.
The dinner had been canceled.
The amendment would have transferred emergency voting authority to a protected trust for our daughter if Roman became unavailable.
I was the appointed temporary trustee.
Eleanor and Vanessa had no control.
“If they declared Bianca unstable before you signed,” Martin said, “the board could challenge her appointment.”
Roman looked toward the fetal monitor.
“Who becomes trustee instead?”
“Your nearest adult relative approved by the existing family council.”
“Eleanor.”
“Unless the council selected Vanessa.”
The attack had been timed before the board dinner.
My hair was not the goal.
The humiliation was meant to create a recording.
The drug was meant to affect my behavior.
The rain was meant to produce confusion, hypothermia, or premature labor.
Any visible distress could be described as instability.
Dr. Brooks returned with preliminary toxicology results.
The pill contained a sedative and a medication sometimes used to influence uterine contractions.
“It was not a standard prenatal drug,” she said. “The dosage may explain the dizziness and the contractions.”
Roman’s face emptied of expression.
“Could it harm the baby?”
“We need further testing.”
The room door opened.
One of Roman’s guards entered with blood on his collar.
He identified himself as Nolan Price.
“I found the west hallway,” he said.
Roman stepped toward him.
“Whose blood?”
Nolan looked at me.
“Mine.”
“What happened?”
“I tried to open the dressing room.”
“Who stopped you?”
Nolan removed a damaged memory card from his pocket.
“I do not know his name. But he had your security override code.”
Roman stared at the card.
“Where did you get that?”
“From the camera Vanessa thought she destroyed.”
Nolan placed it in Martin’s hand.
“The attack was recorded from another angle.”
Before anyone could examine it, his knees buckled.
A dark stain spread beneath his jacket.
May you like
He had been stabbed.
Continue to the next part: The injured guard delivers a hidden recording before collapsing, but the video shows someone using Roman’s private security authority.
