Chapter 3 - Room 614
Maya’s fever was 103.1.
At the hospital, doctors found severe dehydration, an infected C-section incision and signs she had not been eating enough to recover properly.
Liam was cold but stable.
I sat between their beds and understood something ugly.
I had spent years measuring whether I was a good husband by what I provided.
Apartment.
Money.
Insurance.
Security.
But I had outsourced trust to people who shared my last name.
And called that protection.
At 2:18 a.m., my attorney called.
“David, did you authorize a $480,000 transfer yesterday?”
“No.”
Silence.
“Then we have a problem.”
Money had moved from a business reserve account into a company called Northstar Family Holdings.
The authorization carried two signatures.
Mine.
And Maya’s.
“I’m in New York.”
“I know.”
“I never signed anything.”
“I know that too.”
Ethan had access to certain corporate accounts.
But not enough to move nearly half a million dollars.
Unless someone had my authentication token.
I remembered the apartment footage.
Ethan carrying documents.
Then something else.
My suitcase.
In Stuttgart, I had noticed my laptop bag had been moved one morning.
Ethan said hotel housekeeping must have touched it.
My authentication device had been inside.
I called hotel security.
They confirmed Ethan had left Stuttgart four days earlier.
He had lied.
But why involve my family?
Why starve Maya?
Why steal formula from an eleven-day-old child?
Those actions weren't necessary for financial fraud.
They were personal.
Maya woke around three.
“There’s something I didn’t tell you.”
I sat beside her.
“Tell me now.”
“Your mother thinks Liam isn’t yours.”
For several seconds, I genuinely couldn’t process the sentence.
“What?”
“She started saying it while you were in Germany.”
“Why?”
“She said she had proof.”
“What proof?”
Maya started crying.
“She said Ethan told her.”
My best friend.
Again.
Then Maya told me Eleanor had demanded a secret paternity test.
Maya refused.
Afterward, everything changed.
Food disappeared.
Heat was lowered.
Her credit card vanished.
Eleanor began telling Chloe that Maya was a “gold digger carrying another man’s child.”
I wanted to call my mother.
I didn’t.
Evidence first.
Emotion later.
At 3:46, hospital security approached.
“Mr. Mercer?”
“Yes?”
“There’s a woman downstairs asking for your wife.”
“Who?”
“She says she’s Maya’s mother.”
I looked at Maya.
Her face drained.
Maya’s mother, Susan, had died when Maya was sixteen.
“No,” Maya whispered.
“David, don’t let her come up.”
“Who is she?”
Maya grabbed my hand with surprising strength.
Then she told me a name I had never heard during our seven-year marriage.
May you like
“Rebecca Vance.”
And suddenly I realized my family wasn’t the only one that had been keeping secrets.
