Chapter 3 - GRACE'S WALLHolding the fresh DNA report, I rushed up to the fourth floor—the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. The hallway was silent, broken only by the rhythmic beep of heart monitors.
Grace sat on a hard wooden chair outside Chloe’s room. Leo and Maya had fallen asleep on a nearby cot, huddled together under an old coat. Her exhausted appearance broke my heart, but the rage over being lied to for three years overwhelmed everything else.
"Why?" I approached her, dropping the DNA report onto her lap.
Grace flinched, looking down at the paper. She didn't look shocked, nor did she cry. She slowly raised her gaze—a look so deep, filled with such profound hatred and pain, that my footing faltered.
"You want to ask why, Ryan?" she whispered, her voice barely audible over the hum of the machinery. "Do you remember the night of October 14th three years ago?"
I frowned. October 14th... that was the day I signed the divorce agreement before flying to Paris for a major merger meeting.
"That night, I called you fifty times," Grace smiled bitterly, tears spilling down her cheeks. "I fell down the stairs at the old house. I was bleeding, lying alone on the freezing floor, begging you to answer. But you turned off your phone because you 'didn't want to be disturbed during an important meeting.'"
Her words felt like a sledgehammer slamming into my chest. Shocking memories surged back: that night, I saw dozens of missed calls from Grace, but assuming she was just trying to cling to a dying marriage, I brushed it off and turned on Do Not Disturb.
"I almost lost all three babies that night," Grace whispered, her slender fingers digging into her coat. "The doctor told me I was carrying triplets—a high-risk pregnancy. When I woke up in the hospital, the first person I saw wasn't you. It was your mother."
"My mother?" I froze. "What does my mother have to do with this?"
"She brought another agreement," Grace looked up, her eyes razor-sharp. "She told me a woman without background or status had no right to mother children of the Brooks bloodline. She threatened to use your family's full legal machine to strip away my parental rights the moment they were born and throw me into prison on fabricated fraud charges if I didn't disappear!"
"No... My mother couldn't have done that..." I took a step back, my head spinning.
"You know nothing about your own family, Ryan," Grace said bitterly. "You only care about numbers, stocks, and the prestigious reputation of the Brooks Group. I had to run, change my name, and work three jobs a day just to raise my children and hide them from the Brooks family!"
"Grace, listen to me..." I knelt before her, trying to grasp her cold hand. "I'm sorry... I swear I didn't know! But Chloe is in danger right now. Let me help! I am their father!"
Grace slowly pulled her hand away.
"It's too late, Ryan," she said, her voice dropping to a freezing whisper. "You didn't just abandon me. Your indifference gave your mother the power to drive us away. And do you know what the cruelest part is?"
May you like
She pointed toward the ICU room.
"The disease Chloe has... was passed down through your family's blood."
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