Chapter 16 - Labor
Everything after that happened too fast.
A nurse shouted for a wheelchair.
Adrian said my name three times.
Victor started making calls.
Michael grabbed the archive.
Cassandra stood frozen in the hallway.
I looked down at the water on the floor and thought one stupid thing.
Not here.
I was thirty-four weeks.
Too early.
The contraction hit.
I bent forward and screamed despite every promise I had made to myself about being calm.
Adrian knelt in front of me.
“Look at me.”
“I hate you.”
He blinked.
“What?”
“I don’t. I just need to say it to somebody.”
He almost laughed.
“Okay.”
Another contraction.
“I hate your whole family.”
“That one I believe.”
They rushed me downstairs.
An ambulance was waiting.
Victor tried to come.
I pointed at him.
“No.”
He stopped.
“You freeze the trust.”
“Emily—”
“You freeze it before my son is born.”
He understood.
For once, nobody argued.
Adrian rode with me.
At the hospital, doctors moved quickly.
The baby was stable.
Labor was not stopping.
A young obstetrician explained steroid injections, neonatal care, emergency options.
I listened to half of it.
The other half of my brain kept hearing Kent’s words.
Charles becomes temporary guardian by default.
Adrian squeezed my hand.
“No one is taking our son.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“How?”
“Because I will burn that company to the ground before I let a clause in a dead man’s trust decide our family.”
I looked at him.
That was the moment I knew the conspiracy had finally lost.
Not legally.
Not yet.
But emotionally.
They had spent years treating Adrian like an asset.
He had just stopped being one.
My phone rang.
Cassandra.
Adrian answered.
“What?”
Her voice came through speaker.
“Charles filed an emergency guardianship petition.”
My heart jumped.
“Already?”
“He had the documents ready.”
Adrian cursed.
Cassandra continued.
“Can we stop it?”
“I’m trying.”
“Where’s Victor?”
I gripped the bed rail through another contraction.
“There’s a judge reviewing the petition right now.”
“Which judge?”
Michael, who had just entered the room, stopped dead.
“What?”
Cassandra repeated it.
“That judge is in the archive.”
“Paid by Charles?”
Michael shook his head.
“Worse.”
May you like
He opened a file on his tablet.
“She’s Charles’s sister.”
