Chapter 9 - THE MAN WHO CAME TO THE NICU
Eric Sloan entered the hospital using a stolen physician badge.
He reached the neonatal floor at 2:43 a.m.
A nurse noticed that his shoes did not match hospital requirements.
She called security.
By the time guards approached, Eric had entered the family waiting room.
Daniel was asleep in a chair.
I was beside Anna’s incubator.
Eric carried a small medical bag.
Security footage later showed him testing three locked doors before finding the waiting room.
Daniel woke when Eric touched his jacket.
They struggled.
The medical bag fell open.
Inside were syringes, a sedative, and forged orders authorizing the transfer of Anna and James to a private neonatal facility.
The receiving center did not exist.
Eric had planned to remove the twins.
Whether he intended to use them as leverage or make them disappear was never clear.
Daniel forced him against the wall until security arrived.
Eric screamed that he had parental rights.
He claimed the twins’ trust belonged partly to Oliver because Daniel’s money funded it.
The statement made no legal sense.
But it revealed the plan.
Eric believed the twins were financial obstacles.
If their trust could not be stolen, their existence could be challenged.
Police found a custody petition inside his bag.
It claimed I was medically unstable after childbirth.
It claimed Daniel was under investigation for corporate fraud.
It proposed temporary guardianship by Patricia.
The documents were prepared before Vanessa attacked me.
Every possible outcome had been anticipated.
If I surrendered the transfer code, they received the money.
If I refused and was injured, they used my hospitalization.
If Daniel died overseas, Patricia controlled the company.
If both of us became legally compromised, she controlled the twins.
The family was not improvising.
They were executing branches of the same plan.
Eric was arrested for attempted kidnapping, fraud, and conspiracy.
He denied involvement in the elevator sabotage until police showed him the payment records.
Then he blamed Patricia.
He said she promised him five million dollars and recognition for Oliver.
He claimed Vanessa had been too weak to follow the plan properly.
Vanessa heard the statement from her attorney.
She finally understood that Eric had never intended to build a family with her.
He had used Oliver the same way Patricia used the Mercer name.
As leverage.
Vanessa asked to see Daniel again.
He refused.
She sent a letter.
Daniel,
I know you hate me.
I would hate me too.
I kept telling myself I was protecting Oliver.
The truth is that I was protecting the version of my life where I never admitted I failed.
Mom always said you could fix anything.
I believed that included me.
When you stopped fixing things, I blamed Rachel.
I thought if she disappeared, everything would return to how it was.
I did not understand that there was no “before.”
There was only you carrying the consequences.
I am sorry.
Daniel read the letter once.
Then he placed it inside the evidence file.
He did not bring it to me.
May you like
He did not ask me to forgive.
That was how I knew he had changed.
