Chapter 10
Ethan was with Olivia.
She was recovering from a minor, unrelated procedure. Something to
boost her “delicate” constitution.
He was still focused on her general well-being, her every comfort.
He was annoyed.
Sarah wasn’t answering her phone.
Her insolence was grating.
He’d deal with her later.
But the silence stretched.
His annoyance grew into a nagging unease.
Her last text: “We are done, Ethan. You’ll never see me again.”
Defiance. Or something more?
He finally drove to the children’s hospital.
He’d confront her there. Drag her back if he had to.
He found Lily’s room.
Lily was crying, her small body shaking with sobs.
Nurses were trying to comfort her.
“Mommy went on a long trip, sweetie,” one nurse was saying gently. “A
very, very long trip. And she won’t be back.”
Lily looked up, her face tear-streaked.
She saw Ethan standing in the doorway.
A flicker of recognition.
Then, to his utter shock, she ran to him.
She threw her small arms around his legs.
“Daddy!” she cried. “Daddy, Mommy’s gone!”
She pressed a crumpled envelope into his hand.
The DNA report.
Ethan stared at it, stunned.
Daddy?
He looked at the sobbing child clinging to him.
He looked at the official-looking document.
His head spun.
“Where is Sarah?” he demanded, his voice hoarse, grabbing the nearest
nurse’s arm. “Where is she?”
The nurse hesitated, her eyes full of pity.
“Mr. Hayes … Sarah Miller … she was a participant in a high-risk medical
trial. To earn money for Lily’s transplant.”
The nurse’ s voice was low, gentle.
“There were … complications. She passed away yesterday.”
Passed away.
Dead.
Sarah was dead.
The nurse handed him a small plastic bag.
Sarah’s personal effects.
Her cheap watch. A worn photo of a smiling baby Lily.
And the trial consent form.
His eyes scanned the document.
Payor: a shell corporation.
A shell corporation he had set up.
To fund Olivia’s experimental treatments.
The experimental trial Olivia was supposed to start.
The trial Sarah had taken.
The realization hit him like a physical blow.
He had paid for Sarah’s death.
Her sacrifice … it was for Lily.
His daughter.
His last text to her. Her final reply.
“You’ll never see me again.”
It wasn’t defiance. It was a statement of fact.
A horrifying, unbearable fact.
He remembered their early days.
Before Olivia’ s accident. Before the revenge consumed him.
There had been something real with Sarah.
A genuine connection he had tried to suppress, to corrupt, to destroy.
He remembered the night Lily must have been conceived.
A rare moment of something that wasn’t just about power or control.
Something he had buried deep.
Grief, raw and overwhelming, clawed at him.
Guilt, a crushing weight, settled in his soul.
He picked up Lily, his daughter, holding her small, trembling body close.
He took her home.
To the penthouse.
Olivia was there, reclining on the sofa, demanding attention.
“Ethan, darling, where have you been? I was so bored.”
Ethan looked at her, truly looked at her, and saw only shallowness,
selfishness.
He looked at the child in his arms.
Sarah’s eyes looked back at him.
“Olivia,” he said, his voice numb, hollow. “This is Lily. My daughter.”
He held Lily tighter.
“She’s staying with us.”