Chapter 2 - THE MOTHER WHO SUPPOSEDLY LEFT
Hospital security escorted Victor from the pediatric floor.
He left without arguing, but his silence felt more dangerous than his threats.
Anna remained beside Lily while a physician examined her and confirmed that the confrontation had not caused further injury.
When the room became quiet, Lily whispered, “He’ll take Ben now.”
“We are contacting child protection.”
“He owns people there too.”
“Not everyone can be owned.”
Lily looked toward the door.
“My mom said that.”
Anna pulled a chair beside the bed.
“Tell me about her.”
Six months earlier, Lily’s mother, Rachel Mercer, had vanished after a violent argument with Victor.
According to him, Rachel emptied a private bank account, abandoned her children and fled the country with another man.
Victor showed the family an email supposedly written by Rachel.
I cannot live this life anymore. Do not ask the children to wait for me.
Lily never believed it.
Her mother had packed no clothes. Her passport remained inside the house. She also left behind the necklace containing Ben’s baby photograph, something she wore every day.
For weeks, Lily secretly called Rachel’s old number.
The line remained disconnected.
Then, two days before the crash, someone called Lily from an unknown number.
“Mom?”
Rachel’s voice sounded weak and distant.
She said only seven words before the call ended.
Do not sign anything your father gives you.
Lily told Victor.
The following morning, he insisted on sending a company driver to collect her from school.
On the way home, Lily noticed a black SUV following them.
At a traffic light, she saw Victor sitting in the passenger seat.
Minutes later, the SUV struck the side of Lily’s car.
She remembered glass exploding, the vehicle spinning and the driver shouting that the impact was “too hard.”
When Lily woke, the driver was gone.
Victor stood outside the ambulance telling police she had imagined the second vehicle.
“He wanted me hurt,” Lily said. “Maybe not dead, but hurt enough that people would believe I was confused.”
“What are the documents?”
“My grandmother’s trust.”
Rachel’s mother, Evelyn Shaw, founded a medical-technology company before dying five years earlier. She left forty percent of the company to Rachel and divided another twenty percent between Lily and Ben.
The children’s shares were protected until they turned twenty-five.
Victor could not sell them, borrow against them or vote with them.
Unless Lily and Ben were declared abandoned by their mother and placed permanently under his sole control.
Even then, a court had to approve any transfer.
The document Victor brought to the hospital appeared to be Lily’s voluntary consent giving him immediate authority over her shares.
“He said the company needs a merger,” Lily explained. “Mom said the merger would destroy Grandma’s company.”
Anna contacted the hospital’s legal department and child-protection team.
Within an hour, an attorney named Claire Donnelly arrived.
When Lily mentioned her mother’s phone call, Claire’s expression changed.
“Rachel Mercer contacted my office three weeks ago.”
Lily tried to sit up.
“She’s alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
Rachel had sent Claire an encrypted file claiming Victor held her inside a private medical facility under a false name. She said he used forged psychiatric records to have her declared unstable after she discovered missing company funds.
Before Claire could locate the facility, communication stopped.
Victor had not merely told the world his wife left.
He had made her disappear legally.
Claire examined the document Victor attempted to force Lily to sign.
“It transfers more than shares,” she said.
The agreement stated that Lily accepted Victor’s version of Rachel’s disappearance. It also claimed Lily suffered confusion following the accident and voluntarily appointed her father to make all medical and financial decisions.
Once signed, Victor could control her treatment, prevent contact with attorneys and move her to another facility.
“He planned to put me where Mom is,” Lily whispered.
Anna felt cold.
The hospital’s security director entered carrying a report.
The camera above Lily’s door had not recorded the confrontation.
Victor’s private office ordered it disabled twenty minutes before he arrived.
Anna’s confidence weakened.
Then Lily pointed toward the bedside table.
“My tablet.”
Before Victor entered, Lily had been video-calling Ben. She hid the device beneath a blanket when her father appeared.
The video call continued for nine minutes.
Ben had heard everything.
Claire contacted the aunt caring for him.
No one answered.
Police drove to the address.
The house was empty.
May you like
Ben’s clothing was gone, and a broken phone lay beside the front door.
Victor had already taken him.
