Chapter 5
**“She’s your daughter,”** I said, my voice surprisingly steady, though my heart was pounding against my ribs.
Vincent took a half-step forward. His eyes drifted down to the tiny baby. For a brief, fleeting microsecond, I saw a flicker of something human in his gaze—a flash of shock as he registered her face, her features, and those striking gray eyes that were an exact mirror of his own.
He opened his mouth to speak, but before a single sound could form, his phone began to vibrate violently in his jacket pocket.
He pulled it out and looked at the screen. The name displayed was clear even from where I lay: *Sophia.*
The icy, guarded expression on his face instantly melted away, replaced by an intense, soft devotion that he had never once shown me during our six years of marriage.
**“I’m coming, sweetheart,”** he said into the phone, his tone sickeningly tender.
He didn't hang up. He didn't say goodbye to me. He didn't touch his daughter's face. He simply turned around, letting the yellow curtain fall back into place, and walked away.
I sat in the dim overflow room, listening to the rhythm of his receding footsteps until they vanished completely down the hall.
Slowly, I reached up and wiped the cold sweat from my forehead. I looked down at Emily, who was fast asleep, her tiny chest rising and falling rhythmically.
"Never again," I whispered, my voice thick with an absolute, unyielding vow. "I will never let them touch you. I will never let them break you."
That night, while the rest of the floor was quiet and the nurses were occupied with shift changes, I reached for the small plastic hospital phone beside my bed. My fingers were steady as I dialed a private number I had memorized long ago.
The phone rang three times before a sharp, professional voice answered. "Parker & Associates."
"Madison," I said, my voice quiet but laced with iron. "It's Claire."
A sharp intake of breath sounded over the line. "Claire? God, I heard you went into labor early. Where are you? How are you doing? I tried calling Vincent's personal line, but his guard blocked me—"
"Madison, listen to me very carefully," I interrupted, cutting through her frantic questions. "I need out."
There was a moment of absolute silence on the line as Madison Parker, one of the sharpest, most ruthless divorce attorneys in the Midwest and my closest friend from college, processed my words.