Stolen Baby, Stolen Empire

I was bedridden, still bleeding and hollowed out from a traumatic delivery, when a random Q&A thread popped up on my feed. [ What do you do if you can't get pregnant? ] I swiped down.

The top reply was from a woman. [ Find a married man. That's exactly what I did. I let his wife have the baby for me. He even bought me a house and hired a livein nanny.

I'm literally living the dream! ] The original poster replied right below it. [ Would his wife actually agree to that? ] She responded instantly. [ Hell no. He lied to his wife.

Told her the baby didn't make it during a complicated labor, but he actually just handed the kid straight to me. ] My lungs seized. All the air vanished from the room.

The blood left my fingertips as I tapped on her profile. [ Knox is finally here! Motherhood without the labor pains. ] Attached was a photo of a newborn.

A visceral, phantom cramp ripped straight through my chest. My hands shook violently as I doublechecked the timestamp on the post.

The exact same day I almost died in the delivery room. … Chapter 1 I clicked on Sienna’s profile, desperate to find anything that proved it wasn't Holden.

Holden, the man who promised to take care of me forever when he slid the ring onto my finger.

The man who, on our wedding night, placed his shoes under mine as some old superstition, swearing he’d gladly take on my morning sickness if he could.

When I was bleeding out in the delivery room, he dropped to his knees in the sterile hallway, crying until his voice gave out, begging the doctors because he couldn't bear to see me suffer.

We had been married for three years. He still pulled me tight against his chest every single night.

And in exactly three days, we were supposed to attend the funeral he arranged for our dead baby. No. It couldn't be him.

My thumb trembled as I scrolled down her feed. [ He took me to the medspa today!

Said maintaining this face requires heavy investments, then just casually dropped $7,000 on a VIP membership for me.

He treats me way too well! ] The girl in the photo was grinning, her head tilted to reveal the edge of a man's shoulder.

I would recognize that custom suit jacket even if it were reduced to ashes.

I saved up three months of my salary to buy it for him, just so he wouldn't look out of place networking at his corporate dinners. My ribs caved in.

I gasped, clawing at my chest, unable to pull in a single breath. I kept scrolling. [ What's the point of being his wife? She doesn't even know he bought a house.

Meanwhile, I'm the one living off his money. ] The attached photos showed a stunning, modern interior. The location tag was an upscale downtown condo building.

I knew those floor plans like the back of my hand. We had toured those exact units together. It was our ultimate goal, the very reason we had been grinding for the past three years.

Holden had bought it behind my back. Just not for me. My eyes scanned the cramped, peeling walls of the crappy apartment we rented right after the wedding.

We were so deeply in love back then. He had absolutely nothing, and I fought my own family just to marry him. After that, we counted every single penny.

I covered the rent, the groceries, the utilities, while his entire paycheck went straight into a savings account for our future down payment.

I actually believed we were building an empire together. My gaze landed on the battered dresser across the room.

It held his 'knockoff' designer watches and my drugstore clearancerack moisturizers.

He told me the watches were cheap fakes just to keep up appearances at work, and I swallowed the lie without a second thought.

I grabbed my phone, running the serial numbers from her posts through luxury authenticators online. Everything was real. The irony tasted like battery acid on my tongue.

I was rubbing tendollar lotion on my face while he funded her luxury lifestyle. Ding. A new notification popped up on her feed.

I tapped it. [ Showing off baby's little knit sweater! Handmade this myself. ] The picture loaded, showing a newborn bundled up in a small, pale yellow knit sweater.

When I was three months pregnant, I spent weeks knitting that exact piece for my baby. My fingers were clumsy back then.

I dropped a stitch right above the hem, leaving a very specific, lopsided flaw. In the photo, the flaw was sitting right there. Identical down to the thread.

I stared unblinking at the tiny face on the screen. Was this… Knox? Is my baby alive? Bile rose in my throat as hot tears spilled over my eyelashes, blurring the screen.

A wave of suffocating relief hit me first. Then, my stomach violently cramped. I doubled over the edge of the bed, dry heaving. Holden actually did it.

He took the child I carried for ten agonizing months and handed him straight to another woman.

After the hospital told me Knox didn't make it, the silence in the apartment swallowed me whole.

I spent every waking hour staring at the wall, throwing up everything I tried to eat.

Holden would sit on the edge of the mattress, pulling me into a devastatingly gentle hug. "Knox is in heaven now, baby," he had whispered against my hair. "I'll burn all the things we bought for him.

We'll send them up there so he knows how much we love him." Later, he brought it up again. "Let me hire a livein nurse to take care of you.

At least you'll have someone to talk to." His hours at the office had started running later and later.

Refusing to be a burden on my grieving husband, I swallowed my pain and turned him down. "I don't need a nurse.

I can manage on my own." Chapter 2 The echoes of his tender reassurances still rang in my ears. Only now did I realize every single word was coated in cyanide.

He didn't burn Knox's things. He just packed them up and shipped them to his other house.

During my pregnancy, I spent countless nights staring at the ceiling, my back aching, unable to sleep.

I'd text him, telling him not to work too hard, feeling guilty that he was pulling allnighters at the office to provide for us. He wasn't at the office. He was in her bed.

I hemorrhaged. I nearly bled to death on that delivery table to bring Knox into the world, and Holden handed my son over to a stranger without a second thought. He knew.

He knew exactly how much I wanted this baby. How much I loved him! "What's wrong? Why are you crying?" The frantic male voice broke through my spiraling thoughts.

Footsteps hurried across the hardwood floor as Holden rushed into the bedroom. Pure muscle memory took over. I instantly locked my phone and flipped it face down on the mattress.

He hadn't come home last night. He was still wearing the same custom suit from yesterday, looking utterly exhausted and disheveled. When I didn't answer, his brow furrowed deeply.

He leaned in, reaching out to pull me into his chest. "I'm so sorry, baby. The partners kept me at the office until dawn.

The second I clocked out, I drove straight—" A sharp ringtone cut off his excuse. It wasn't his standard iPhone radar chime. It was a custom alert.

Holden glanced at me, a microscopic hesitation flickering in his eyes. "Baby, it's the senior partner. Let me grab this real quick." He stood up, already pivoting toward the door.

I lifted my chin. My eyes locked directly onto his. "Holden. Is our baby really gone?" The ringing stopped. He froze, his hand hovering over the doorknob.

Carefully, he placed his phone on the nightstand and turned back, wrapping his large hands around my freezing fingers.

His thumb stroked my knuckles. "Baby, I know how hard losing Knox has been on you. But we can't let the past destroy us. "Focus on healing your body right now. We'll try again.

We can have another one." He pressed a kiss to my forehead. "Let me go make you those sweet and sour ribs you love so much, okay?" The custom ringtone pierced the air again.

His jaw tightened, the color draining from his cheeks. He snatched the phone off the nightstand, taking rapid steps toward the hallway. "Give me two seconds.

I'll be right back." But I had already seen it. His lock screen. For three years, it had been a candid photo of me laughing at a diner. Now, it was just a generic landscape.

Holden used to tell me he missed me the second he walked out the door, and seeing my face on his screen was the only thing that got him through the workday.

The devotion was still there. He just wasn't devoting it to me anymore. I slipped out of bed, creeping toward the bedroom door.

He had the phone pressed tight to his ear, his voice dropped to a frantic whisper. But I heard him. "What? He's running a fever? Don't move.

I'm on my way." My stomach dropped into a bottomless pit. My throat closed up, choking my breath. Is Knox sick? I gripped the doorframe, my knuckles turning white.

Every instinct screamed at me to kick the door open, to grab Holden by the collar and demand he bring my son back this second. My phone buzzed against my leg. [ Works every time.

Just let the baby get a little sick, and he drops everything to come running back to my bed. ] She was deliberately making my newborn sick.

A fever in an infant that young could cause permanent brain damage. It could kill him. I stared at the screen. The sour taste of battery acid coated the back of my throat.

I dug my fingernails into my palms until the skin split. He can have the man. I don't want him anymore. But I carried Knox for ten months. I brought him into this world.

I had already grieved his death once. I refuse to lose him again. Chapter 3 The call clicked off. I silently eased the bedroom door shut and retreated to the mattress.

Heavy footsteps echoed down the hall. He was coming back. The door clicked open. "Baby, I'm heading out to grab those ribs.

I'll be back in a flash." Every nerve in my body screamed at me to rip him apart. I forced my spine straight. I met his gaze, my voice dead flat. "I don't want ribs.

Don't bother." A brief flicker of panic crossed his face. Then, that practiced, flawless smile slid right back into place. He leaned in. "Don't be like that.

As long as I'm around, I'll never let you suffer.

Whatever you're craving, I'll make it." He didn't even wait for me to nod before he pivoted and practically jogged out the front door.

A week ago, those words would have brought tears to my eyes. Today, they just made my stomach turn. I didn't care about his lies anymore. I just needed to see my son.

I threw a heavy trench coat over my pajamas and followed him out. His Audi pulled into the underground garage of the downtown highrise.

I kept a halfblock distance in my Uber, tracking him. The lobby marble, the manicured courtyard—every detail was sickeningly familiar.

It was the exact building we toured three years ago.

I remembered Holden wrapping his arms around me in the elevator, his eyes shining with ambition. "I'm going to work my ass off for this, baby.

I'm going to lock down this condo and give you and our future kids the perfect home." He got the perfect home. He just swapped out the wife.

I slipped out of the stairwell on the penthouse floor, lifting my phone and hitting record. The heavy mahogany door swung open.

A woman in a silk slip dress practically launched herself into the hallway, wrapping her arms around his neck.

She wasn't carrying the physical wreckage of a traumatic birth like I was.

Her waist was snatched, her blowout immaculate, her skin glowing from thousands of dollars in medspa treatments.

Holden’s hands immediately dropped to her hips, pulling her flush against his chest. "You little liar," he murmured, burying his face in her neck. "I barely left the driveway and you're already missing me?

Claiming the baby has a fever… don't think I don't know exactly what you're doing." He let out a low, indulgent laugh, his hands sliding lower down the silk fabric.

She giggled, swaying out of his grip. "If you knew I was faking, why did you rush over?" she teased, trailing a finger down his lapel. "Aren't you terrified the wife at home is going to throw a fit?" Holden’s hands stilled. "I am.

I need to head back soon." An older woman’s voice drifted out from the foyer. "If you ask me, you should just file the divorce papers already.

Save yourself the headache of commuting back to that trashy little apartment every day. Sienna is a much better fit for this family anyway." My blood turned to ice.

Holden's mother stepped into the doorframe. Holden was raised by a single mom. They scraped by on nothing. When he proposed to me, his bank account was entirely empty.

No ring, no down payment, driving a rustedout Honda he bought for a grand in cash.

It was his mother who had gripped my hands at the courthouse, tears in her eyes. "Seraphina, you're an angel for taking my boy.

I know he doesn't have much right now," she had sworn. "But I promise you, whatever other wives have, we will make sure you get it tenfold.

If this boy ever disrespects you, I'll break his legs myself." I believed her.

I fought my own parents to the point of complete estrangement, just to marry a man who couldn't even afford a silver band.

For three years, I worked myself into the ground, pulling double shifts just to prove to my family that I hadn't made a catastrophic mistake.

Now, the absolute sheer stupidity of it all hit me like a physical blow. Holden's jaw clenched. His tone instantly dropped, turning dead serious. "Mom. Drop it.

I am not divorcing Seraphina." He wrapped his arm around Sienna's waist and pulled her inside, the heavy door clicking shut behind them.

Chapter 4 My spine slid down the cold hallway wall until I hit the floor. The numbness shattered, replaced by a sharp, dragging ache in my pelvis.

Warm liquid pooled between my thighs, seeping through my clothes. The edges of my vision bled to black. My trembling fingers dialed 911 right before the darkness pulled me under.

The sterile smell of bleach dragged me back. An IV dripped into my arm. A nurse adjusted the tubing beside my bed. "You hemorrhaged and passed out.

We've already notified your family. "You just gave birth. You need to rest, not run yourself into the ground." I stared at the drop ceiling tiles for exactly two seconds.

Then, I grabbed my phone and dialed the bank. "Hi. I need to check the balance on Holden's joint family account.

I'm his wife." An automated voice chimed through the speaker. "The current balance for the joint account under Holden is… zero dollars and thirty cents." I ended the call.

Thirty cents. The number hit me like a physical backhand across the jaw. It mocked every single time I hesitated to add a onedollar egg to my instant ramen.

It mocked my swollen ankles, working double shifts into my third trimester just to hit our down payment goal.

Based on Holden's salary and my deposits, that account should have held at least a hundred and twenty thousand dollars.

I took a long, steadying breath, suppressing the tremor in my chest. I dialed the number I hadn't called in three years. "Holden is cheating on me.

Can you help?" The line fell dead silent for a long moment before a heavy sigh filtered through. "What do you need?" "Find me a divorce lawyer.

I'm taking my son and every single cent back." "Done." The door pushed open the second I hung up. Holden burst into the room.

He must have sprinted from the parking lot, but the heavy, sickeningly sweet scent of women's perfume still clung to his collar. My stomach churned. I jerked my chin back.

His face was pale, his eyes wide with a frantic sheen. "Baby, why are you bleeding again?" He reached out, his thumb brushing my cheek. "I never should have left the apartment.

I failed you." I locked eyes with him. "Where are the ribs?" The muscles in his jaw froze. "I… I didn't get a chance to buy them yet." "Didn't get a chance?

Or never even stepped foot in the grocery store?

It's three blocks from the apartment." He blinked, his brain clearly scrambling for a lifeline before smoothing out. "I went to check the venue for the funeral tomorrow.

I didn't want to tell you and trigger your grief." A flawless, airtight lie. When did he learn to lie without blinking?

Or maybe he had always been this way. "Baby, what's wrong?" He reached for me again, his brow furrowed in deep concern.

I turned my head sharply, letting his hand drop to the sheets. His hand hovered over the bed in awkward silence.

He opened his mouth to speak, but the hospital door swung wide. "Why are you back in the hospital?" Holden's mother marched in, carrying a plastic bag of fruit.

She shoved right past Holden, planted herself on the edge of my mattress, and clamped her hands tightly over mine.

Chapter 5 Before I could even catch my breath, she kept going. "Seraphina, I know losing the baby took a toll on you. I'm a woman.

I understand the pain," she said, squeezing my fingers. "But you can't just drown in your grief forever. Do you know how much an emergency room visit for a hemorrhage costs?

You need to think about Holden. "Look at how hard he's working to keep this family afloat. You haven't brought in a paycheck in a month because of the delivery.

Holden is carrying every single bill on his own." The sheer audacity made my stomach violently churn. Hot bile surged up my throat. A violent gag ripped through my throat.

I couldn't hold it back. I lurched over the bedrail and threw up. Right onto her shoes. She let out a piercing shriek and scrambled backward.

Her fake maternal warmth vanished, her upper lip curling into a sneer. "Look at you! You have absolutely no shame!

Women give birth every day, and none of them let themselves look this disgusting." She sneered at my hospital gown. "Look at your waist. You don't even try to maintain your figure.

You're lucky my Holden is willing to put up with you." Every word out of her mouth made me dry heave harder. I hunched over the plastic basin, retching until my vision went black.

I used to be so blind, living in my little bubble of delusion. I never realized all their fake concern and sweet words were just a mechanism to drain me dry.

The second I missed four weeks of paychecks from a traumatic delivery, the masks slipped. By the time I wiped the sour spit from my chin, the room was empty.

I reached for the plastic bag she had dropped on the bedside table and ripped it open. Bruised, overripe fruit from the discount bins. Just like always.

During my pregnancy, she claimed she was bringing me premium organic groceries, but it was always the rotting leftovers. At first, I swallowed the insult.

I thought she was just an old woman with frugal habits, so I quietly threw it away.

Then, I ended up hospitalized with severe food poisoning in my second trimester and nearly lost the baby. The doctors found out the milk she brought me was three weeks expired.

When Holden found out, he screamed at her right in the hallway, banning her from buying me anything ever again.

I remembered the furious, protective look on his face as he stood between me and his mother. Maybe, for a split second back then, he actually meant it.

If I hadn't seen that post on my feed, I would still be sitting here, stupidly trusting them. But the blindfold was off now. The next day. The funeral.

When I arrived at the venue, everything was already set up. It was a lavish display, overflowing with expensive floral arrangements. Just as I suspected, there were no guests.

No extended family. Even Holden's mother hadn't bothered to show up and pretend. This wasn't a memorial. It was a meticulously crafted stage play designed just for me.

It was 9:00 AM. Holden still wasn't here. My phone vibrated with a single text. [ Baby, a massive emergency came up at the firm. I'm tied up.

I'll be there the second I fix this. ] A cold, dead laugh escaped my lips. I opened Sienna’s profile.

Right on cue. [ I told him the baby and I had food poisoning, and he instantly ditched the funeral to rush over. The kid is mine. The man is mine too. ] Ding.

A new message notification popped up on my screen.

It was a video file from the lawyer. [ Seraphina, brace yourself before you watch this. ] I looked at the timestamp on the security footage. It was the exact day I gave birth.

Chapter 6 I tapped play. The footage instantly seared into my retinas. Tears I thought had dried up long ago spilled over my eyelashes.

I stared at the screen, my entire body going rigid as I watched it all unfold. A violent, acidic hatred burned through my veins, threatening to swallow me alive. Zero hesitation.

I selected the video file and forwarded it to every single family group chat we shared. I sent it to his college buddies, his golf buddies, and every mutual friend we had.

Then, I CC'd the internal mailing list at his law firm and blasted it to every coworker's email address I could find.

After hitting send on the final email, I attached the PDF of the divorce papers and texted them straight to Holden.

I turned around and walked straight out of that ridiculous, staged funeral