Read the next chapter to discover how everything unfolds.

The glow of the computer monitors painted the darkened cabin in an eerie, pale blue light. Outside, the wind whipped through the pine trees, rattling the iron shutters against the glass. Inside, the only sounds were the quiet clicking of the keyboard and the soft, even breathing of Leah’s baby sleeping peacefully in a makeshift bassinet made from a cushioned laundry basket.

Leah stood behind Simone’s chair, watching the rapid scroll of encrypted data cascading down the primary monitor.

"I've mirrored all the financial ledgers from Briar Glen’s main server," Simone said, her fingers flying across the keys with professional speed. "Bank routing numbers to offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands, medical board payoffs, forged psychiatric commitment orders signed by Dr. Rusk, and..." She paused, hitting a final enter key. "Bingo."

A high-resolution video file popped up on the screen, labeled Archive_2024_Carver_Trust.

Simone clicked play.

The grainy security footage showed a brightly lit administrative office inside Briar Glen. Doreen Carver sat behind a mahogany desk, and standing directly across from her was Nathan. The audio was crisp, picked up by a hidden microphone built into the desk lamp.

“The girl is getting too suspicious about the low-lying placenta diagnosis,” Nathan’s voice echoed from the speakers, sounding casual and detached. “She wanted a second opinion from an independent doctor in the city.”

“You should have never let her browse online forums, Nathan,” Doreen replied coldly, signing a document with a gold-nibbed pen. “It breeds defiance. Handle the psychiatric hold the moment she gives birth. Once she’s labeled incompetent, the baby goes into the Carver Trust immediately. She’ll sign the voluntary surrender forms within forty-eight hours under heavy sedation, or we’ll make the hold permanent.”

“And if she fights it?” Nathan asked.

“She won't,” Doreen scoffed, waving a hand dismissively. “She’s an orphan, Nathan. She has no family to advocate for her, no powerful friends, no money to hire aggressive legal counsel. In the eyes of the court, she’s just an emotional, unstable mother. Who do you think a judge is going to believe—a respected philanthropist or a hysterical patient?”

Leah watched the screen, her chest tightening with a suffocating mix of fury and disgust. The man she had loved for five years had sat across from his mother and plotted her destruction like a corporate merger.

"We have enough here to trigger a federal raid," Leah said, her voice steady and resolute. "We need to send this to the FBI's public corruption division in Washington, not the local police."

"Agreed," Simone nodded, sliding a flash drive into the USB port. "I’m compiling the master packet now. But look at this..." She pointed to a sub-folder that had just appeared on the screen, locked behind a high-level military-grade firewall. Project_Genesis_Clients.

"What is that?" Leah asked, leaning closer.

"That," Simone whispered, her eyes widening slightly, "is the client list. The high-profile politicians, judges, and corporate CEOs who paid millions to buy infants stolen from mothers like us through Doreen’s syndicate."

Before Simone could attempt to bypass the final firewall, a sharp, piercing alarm tone echoed through the cabin’s security system.

Beep-beep-beep.