Chapter 10 - THE NIGHT OUR SON DISAPPEARED
Natalie told me everything.
Seven years ago, after Lucas was born, she woke up in the hospital.
But he was gone.
Diane told her he had died.
The doctor showed her a death certificate.
Natalie believed it.
But there had been one detail she never understood.
The baby she held before surgery had a tiny birthmark beneath his left ear.
The body they showed her afterward didn't.
She had asked questions.
Diane told her grief was making her confused.
Then Victor appeared.
He wasn't introduced as a criminal.
He was introduced as a medical philanthropist.
He offered to help with the hospital bills.
Natalie refused.
Then he showed her a photograph.
Lucas alive.
She screamed.
He threatened her.
"If you tell your husband, the boy disappears forever."
So Natalie stayed silent.
I stared at her.
"You knew."
She cried.
"I thought I could get him back."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because Diane told me you'd die trying."
I looked away.
I wanted to be angry.
But I couldn't.
She had spent seven years believing she was protecting our child.
She wasn't the enemy.
She had been trapped too.
Then Marcus arrived.
He had received the second pathology results.
We opened the envelope together.
The first diagnosis had been false.
Natalie did not have breast cancer.
She had a benign tumor.
It required surgery.
But it wasn't cancer.
Natalie covered her face.
She sobbed.
I held her.
All those months.
The fear.
The shaved head.
The storage room.
The money.
The suffering.
It had all been manufactured.
The doctors had altered the report.
Victor had needed Natalie to believe she was dying.
Because fear made people easier to control.
But why?
Marcus placed a document on the table.
"We found the answer."
It was a genetic report.
Lucas carried a rare genetic marker.
Natalie carried the same marker.
I did not.
Victor had been trying to identify families with that marker.
He believed it could help him develop an experimental treatment.
But there was more.
The treatment had never been approved.
Children had been used as test subjects.
Lucas was one of them.
Natalie's false diagnosis was designed to make her eligible for the same program.
I stared at the report.
"This is monstrous."
Marcus nodded.
"And the evidence is enough."
Then Diane entered.
She looked broken.
She placed a ledger on the table.
"I stole this from Victor."
I opened it.
Names.
Dates.
Payments.
Doctors.
Hospitals.
Children.
And at the bottom—
my name.
Diane pointed to it.
"Victor paid me to keep you overseas."
I stared.
"How much?"
"$40,000 every month."
My stomach turned.
"For six months."
"Yes."
"And before that?"
She began crying.
"Five years."
I couldn't speak.
She had been paid for years.
While I worked.
While Natalie suffered.
While my son was missing.
Then Diane said:
"There is one more name."
She pointed to the ledger.
A doctor.
Dr. Samuel Carter.
My father's name.
I stared.
"My father?"
Diane nodded.
"He knew."
My father had died three years earlier.
I had mourned him.
I had believed he was one of the few people who always protected me.
Now I learned he had known my son was alive.
And he had done nothing.
I turned the page.
There was a handwritten note.
THE BOY MUST NEVER MEET HIS FATHER.
Underneath was my father's signature.
I felt something inside me break.
Lucas walked into the room.
He looked at me.
"Are you okay?"
I knelt.
"Yes."
"Are you sad?"
I hugged him.
"A little."
"Why?"
"Because adults sometimes make terrible choices."
He thought for a moment.
"Did they make you sad?"
I looked at Natalie.
"Yes."
Lucas hugged me tighter.
Then he whispered:
"But we're together now."
I closed my eyes.
For the first time in seven years—
I believed him.
But the story wasn't over.
Because the next morning, the police called.
Victor had disappeared from custody.
And he had taken one person with him.
May you like
Diane.
:::
