Victor did not enter until I agreed.
Lena insisted on remaining beside me.
Detective Harris stayed near the wall.
The arrangement seemed to irritate Victor, but he accepted it without argument.
He stopped several feet from the bed.
“May I sit?”
I pointed toward the chair across the room.
He took it.
For a moment, the powerful Victor Carter looked strangely unsure of what to do with his hands.
He finally rested them on his knees.
“I am sorry.”
Lena’s expression hardened.
“For which part?”
Victor looked at her.
“All of it.”
“That’s broad.”
“It needs to be.”
I studied him.
“Did you know Marcus locked me downstairs?”
“No.”
“Did you know he was hurting me?”
Victor hesitated.
“I knew your marriage had become unstable.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No.”
He breathed out slowly.
“I knew Marcus was angry. I underestimated what that meant.”
Harris remained silent.
I wanted him there.
I wanted every word heard by someone who could not later be manipulated into forgetting.
“Why did you change the trust?”
Victor looked toward the fetal monitor.
The baby’s heartbeat filled the quiet room.
“Because Marcus had become reckless.”
“With money?”
“With everything.”
“When?”
“Over the last two years.”
That surprised me.
Marcus’s behavior toward me had worsened only recently.
“He had been taking money?”
“Moving it.”
“From the company?”
“Through subsidiaries. Some transactions were technically authorized. Others were disguised.”
“Why wasn’t he arrested?”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
“Because I handled it privately.”
Lena gave a humorless laugh.
“Families like yours always think privacy is cheaper than consequences.”
Victor accepted the remark.
“I believed I could contain him.”
“And instead he contained me.”
His gaze dropped.
“Yes.”
Another contraction began.
Victor started to rise.
Lena put up one hand.
“Stay there.”
He sat.
I breathed.
When it ended, the nurse entered, checked the monitor, and left after telling us everything still looked reassuring.
Victor waited until the door closed.
“The trust was my attempt to protect the company from Marcus.”
“By giving it to my unborn child.”
“The amendment was drafted before we knew whether you were pregnant.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
He leaned forward slightly.
“The structure was tied to Marcus’s lawful descendants, not specifically this pregnancy.”
“Then why did his mother say you were looking for me?”
“Because once we learned you were pregnant, the trust became immediately relevant.”
“How did you learn?”
“Marcus told me.”
I remembered the day we announced the pregnancy.
Marcus had seemed happy.
He opened champagne for everyone else and sparkling water for me.
Victor had hugged me awkwardly.
I had thought his reserve meant disapproval.
Maybe he had been calculating succession.
“Did Marcus know the exact terms?”
“Yes.”
“Why would you tell him?”
“He was a beneficiary. Legal notice was required.”
“And he became angry.”
Victor’s mouth tightened.
“He became convinced I was stealing his inheritance.”
“Were you?”
“No. He still had a significant settlement.”
“How significant?”
“Enough that nobody reasonable would call it deprivation.”
Lena crossed her arms.
“Marcus doesn’t sound particularly reasonable.”
“No.”
I looked at Victor.
“Why my child?”
“Because I wanted control separated from Marcus.”
“That means you were planning your grandchild’s life before it was born.”
“Yes.”
There was no defensiveness in his answer.
That made it more unsettling.
“You didn’t think to ask me?”
“The trust concerns my assets.”
“The consequences apparently concern my basement.”
Victor closed his eyes briefly.
“You’re right.”
I did not expect that.
It gave me nowhere to place the anger.
Harris spoke for the first time.
“Mr. Carter, tell her about the signature.”
Victor’s face changed.
“What signature?”
I asked.
He looked at Harris.
“You said she should rest.”
“She asked.”
Victor rubbed his thumb across one knuckle.
“Three months ago, documents were submitted to one of our corporate trustees.”
“What documents?”
“A waiver.”
“Waiving what?”
“Your child’s future claim.”
My hand moved over my abdomen.
“How can an unborn baby waive anything?”
“You would have waived on the child’s behalf.”
“I never did.”
“I know.”
“Then whose signature?”
“Yours.”
The room tilted.
Lena stepped closer.
“Forged?”
Victor nodded.
“That appears likely.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“I did.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I called the number provided in the filing.”
I understood before he finished.
Marcus.
“He changed my contact information.”
Victor nodded.
“I spoke to a woman.”
Lena leaned forward.
“What woman?”
“I assumed it was her.”
I stared at him.
“You talked to someone pretending to be me?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
“That you understood the waiver and wanted no involvement with Carter Industrial.”
The woman from the videos.
I knew it before anyone said it.
“Describe her.”
Victor did.
Dark hair.
Low voice.
Mid-thirties.
Polished.
Confident.
The same woman who had sat across restaurant tables from Marcus.
The same woman who had been inside our house while I was locked beneath it.
“What’s her name?” Harris asked.
Victor shook his head.
“She called herself by my daughter-in-law’s name.”
I looked at Harris.
“You need to find the woman Marcus brought to the house.”
“We are.”
“She pretended to be me.”
“We don’t know that yet.”
“I do.”
Harris wrote it down.
Victor continued.
“The waiver was rejected.”
My attention snapped back.
“Why?”
“Because the trustee required notarized identification and an independent witness.”
“And Marcus couldn’t provide them?”
“Not legitimately.”
“So he needed me.”
Victor nodded.
“He may have.”
The staged affairs suddenly made awful sense.
Marcus had wanted me angry.
Humiliated.
Ready to sign divorce papers.
Maybe ready to sign anything if he buried the critical document in a stack.
“Those videos.”
I looked at Lena.
“He wanted me to leave him.”
Victor watched me.
“Marcus told me you planned to divorce.”
“I never said that.”
“He said you had threatened to take the child away.”
“I never said that either.”
“He told me you wanted money to stay quiet.”
Lena stood.
“You believed him?”
“At first.”
“What changed?”
Victor looked at me.
“You did.”
“I barely spoke to you.”
“That was what changed.”
I waited.
“He told me you were making demands through him. But you never contacted me. You never contacted company counsel. You never hired an attorney. You never behaved like someone making the threats he described.”
“So you became suspicious.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“About six weeks ago.”
Before the cage.
“What did you do?”
“I hired an outside forensic accountant.”
Marcus must have discovered that.
The timeline clicked together.
The increasing panic.
The hidden paperwork.
The sudden escalation.
“Did Marcus know?”
“Not initially.”
“But eventually.”
Victor nodded.
“Someone told him.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
His eyes shifted.
Harris noticed.
“You suspect someone.”
Victor did not answer.
“Mr. Carter.”
“My wife.”
The room fell quiet.
Marcus’s mother.
The woman who brought me bread.
The woman wearing the key.
“Why would she warn Marcus?”
Victor’s voice lowered.
“Because she always protects him.”
“That’s not enough.”
“No.”
He looked toward the hospital window.
“She also signed several transfers.”
I remembered what she told Harris.
“She said Marcus told her they were ordinary transfers.”
“That is what she claims.”
“You don’t believe her?”
“I don’t know what I believe anymore.”
Another contraction came.
Longer.
Harder.
I gripped Lena’s hand.
She breathed with me.
Victor remained silent.
When it ended, the nurse checked me.
“Six centimeters.”
Lena smiled weakly.
“Halfway.”
“Labor math is cruel.”
The nurse laughed.
“We’re moving.”
After she left, I looked at Victor again.
“Why were you looking for me?”
He leaned back.
“Because three weeks ago I called your home.”
“The day Marcus locked me downstairs?”
“Yes.”
My pulse jumped.
“Why?”
“The forensic accountant found something.”
“What?”
“A series of insurance policies.”
Lena stopped moving.
“Insurance on whom?”
Victor looked at me.
“You.”
The monitor continued beeping.
My baby’s heart.
My heart.
Two mechanical rhythms measuring life while a man explained how somebody had assigned it a value.
“How much?”
Victor hesitated.
“Several million dollars.”
Lena swore.
“Marcus bought life insurance on me?”
“Some policies were legitimate spousal coverage. Others had been increased recently.”
“When?”
“After your pregnancy was confirmed.”
I stared at him.
“So if I died—”
“Marcus would receive significant benefits.”
“And the baby?”
Victor looked at Harris.
The detective answered.
“If the child survived, the trust issue would remain.”
“What if we both died?”
No one answered immediately.
My skin went cold.
“What happens if we both die?”
Victor’s voice was quiet.
“The trust reverts.”
“To whom?”
“To Marcus.”
The room seemed to shrink.
I looked at my stomach.
Suddenly every withheld meal felt different.
Every missed doctor appointment.
Every day Marcus ignored my contractions.
Every time he told his mother I did not need medical care.
He had not needed to kill me directly.
He only needed something to happen.
Pregnancy complications.
An accident.
A stillbirth.
A desperate wife doing something irrational.
He was building explanations.
“The videos,” I whispered.
Harris looked up.
“If I disappeared and people thought our marriage was collapsing…”
“They might interpret your absence differently,” he said.
“If I died…”
I could not finish.
Lena did.
“He had created a story where she was unstable.”
Harris nodded once.
“Potentially.”
Victor looked sick.
“I should have gone to the police earlier.”
“Yes,” I said.
He accepted that too.
“I called Marcus after the accountant found the policies.”
“What did he say?”
“That you had gone to stay with your sister.”
Lena laughed sharply.
“He didn’t even bother checking whether that could be verified?”
“I tried calling you.”
“My number changed last year.”
“I know that now.”
“So you searched for me.”
“Yes.”
“I was underneath his house.”
Victor looked down.
“I know.”
A knock sounded.
Harris stepped into the hallway.
His conversation was quiet.
Then he returned.
“We found the woman.”
My heart jumped.
“From the videos?”
“Yes.”
“Who is she?”
“Her name is Celeste Rowan.”
Victor’s head snapped up.
“You know her?”
His face had gone pale.
“Yes.”
“How?”
Victor stood slowly.
“She worked for Carter Industrial.”
“Doing what?”
“Executive administration.”
“For you?”
“For Marcus.”
“Recently?”
“Until four months ago.”
Lena looked between us.
“Why did she leave?”
Victor’s expression became grim.
“She was terminated after internal audit discovered unauthorized access to corporate records.”
Harris wrote quickly.
“Did Marcus know about the termination?”
“He fought it.”
“Relationship?”
“I suspected one.”
I thought of Celeste upstairs while I was imprisoned.
“Did she know about the trust?”
Victor looked at me.
“If she accessed Marcus’s records, she could have known everything.”
Harris’s phone buzzed again.
He read the message.
“Celeste is not at her apartment.”
“Car?”
“Gone.”
“So she ran.”
“We don’t know that.”
But his expression said enough.
Another contraction began.
I closed my eyes.
Somewhere outside the hospital, police were searching for the woman who had pretended to be me.
Inside, Victor was explaining why my husband needed signatures, waivers, and a convenient story about a failing marriage.
And beneath all of it remained the fact I could not escape.
Marcus had spent months preparing for a future in which either my child, or I, or both of us were no longer obstacles.
Click here to continue reading: PART 7: Celeste Left Behind a Recorded Message, While Marcus’s Mother Finally Admitted What She Had Been Ordered to Do After My Labor Began
The Night My Husband Carried a Welding Torch Downstairs and Told Me Nobody Would Ever Come Looking
Part 6 of 40
