Chapter 10 - THE MOTHERS THEY CHOSE
Her name was Ana Delgado.
She had worked at the estate two years earlier.
She lost her son at thirty-seven weeks.
The hospital called it placental failure.
Afterward, Camilla’s charity paid her medical debt and offered her a job at a private household.
Three months later, Ana disappeared.
The other women followed the same pattern.
Late pregnancy.
A violent incident or suspicious medical emergency.
A stillbirth.
A sudden employment offer connected to Rossi companies.
Agent Quinn believed Camilla had been building a secret registry of postpartum women.
“Why?” I asked.
“Wet nurses,” Dr. Reed answered.
“Women whose milk could be used without official donor-bank records.”
The medical network served wealthy clients who wanted private infant care.
Some were celebrities.
Some were criminals.
Some babies had been born through illegal surrogacy arrangements.
Camilla supplied milk and medical services outside regulated systems.
The women were never told.
Their grief made them easy to control.
“But why bring me to Leo?” I asked.
Quinn placed another document beside the photographs.
“Your blood type and genetic profile matched Elena Rossi’s.”
The clinic had collected my blood during pregnancy.
Leo had inherited a rare metabolic condition from his mother.
He tolerated donor milk poorly.
Camilla knew a closely matched postpartum woman might keep him alive long enough for the succession plan.
“They wanted me to feed him,” I said.
“At least once.”
Quinn nodded.
“They needed proof that you had physical contact with him.”
“Then they could build the obsession story.”
“They planned every part of it.”
The room felt too small.
Even my body had been selected.
My grief had been turned into evidence before I knew there was a crime.
Dr. Reed touched my arm.
“You are not responsible for what they did with your medical information.”
I pulled away.
“I know.”
But again, knowing and believing were different things.
Ana Delgado’s file contained a current address.
Federal agents found her in a private rehabilitation center under another name.
She had been drugged for almost two years.
She remembered being taken after threatening to expose the milk program.
She also remembered Dr. Vale mentioning a storage laboratory beneath Saint Agnes Clinic.
Quinn obtained a warrant.
The laboratory held frozen milk, blood, genetic files, and records for dozens of infants.
Some babies had been illegally adopted.
Others had never been declared to the state.
Camilla had built a market from stolen motherhood.
A camera inside the laboratory recorded movement.
Dr. Vale appeared on the screen.
He pushed Camilla in a wheelchair.
Her face was bruised from the mansion fire.
She was alive.
Vale placed her inside a secure room.
Then he spoke toward the camera.
“Lorenzo.”
“If you want Camilla’s testimony, bring Maya Carter.”
I watched the message twice.
“Why does he want me?”
Quinn opened Lily’s hospital file.
A page had been removed from the official record.
The laboratory copy still existed.
Lily’s umbilical-cord blood carried the same rare genetic marker as Leo.
Vale had stored it.
He believed my body could produce antibodies useful in treating Leo’s condition.
He did not only want to frame me.
He wanted to own the treatment.
“Leo’s improvement will make the discovery worth billions,” Dr. Reed said.
“A therapy built from stolen maternal samples.”
I looked toward the baby sleeping behind glass.
Vale intended to continue the experiment.
Camilla had become his hostage because she knew the entire network.
Agent Quinn refused to use me in an exchange.
I refused her refusal.
“He has samples from my daughter.”
“We can recover them without you.”
“He asked for me because he believes I am still easy to control.”
Quinn shook her head.
“You are not walking into that clinic.”
I looked at Lily’s photograph on my phone.
For three weeks, powerful people had decided what my grief made me.
Weak.
Desperate.
Unstable.
Useful.
May you like
“They built this because women like us were supposed to stay quiet after losing our children.”
“I’m done being useful to them.”
