Chapter 3 - THE SAPPHIRE AND THE TRAIN
“They can’t do that,” I said, stepping past Clara to confront the surgeon. “That valve was assigned to Leo.”
“I’m sorry, sir, who are you?” the doctor asked, adjusting his glasses.
“I’m the father,” I said.
The words tore out of my throat before I could stop them. Behind me, Clara let out a choked sob.
The doctor’s expression hardened. “Well, Mr. Vance, I suggest you take this up with your own fiancée. The board order was signed by Eleanor’s father.”
The room started to spin.
Eleanor’s family owned a massive biomedical conglomerate, but I had no idea they held leverage over this specific institute.
“Why would Eleanor’s father care about a pediatric valve?” I asked, my voice dangerously low.
Clara grabbed my arm, her nails digging into my expensive suit jacket. “Because he knows, Julian! They all know. Your mother, Eleanor, her father. They found out about the boys three months ago.”
I looked at the woman I had once promised to protect from the world. She looked broken.
“My mother has been paying you?” I asked, the betrayal tasting like bile in my mouth.
“She didn’t pay me to leave, Julian,” Clara whispered, her grip loosening. “Four years ago, she paid the clinic to falsify my ultrasound. She told me the babies had a fatal genetic heart defect. She said if I stayed with you, the scandal of ‘defective’ heirs would ruin the company launch. She said she would make sure I never saw them again.”
“And you believed her?”
“She brought your lawyer!” Clara cried quietly. “She had documents, Julian. Documents with your signature. You signed away your rights before they were even born!”
My hand instinctively went to my breast pocket. My fingers brushed the velvet box holding Eleanor’s sapphire ring.
My mother hadn’t just driven Clara away. She had orchestrated an entire false reality to ensure I married into Eleanor’s biomedical empire. And today—the day of my wedding—they had frozen the trust and pulled the valve to make sure Clara was too desperate to crash the ceremony.
I pulled my phone from my pocket. Seven missed calls from my mother. Five from Eleanor.
I looked down at the plastic bench.
The healthy twin—the one with Clara’s dark curls—stood up. He walked over to me, completely unafraid. He looked up at me, his arrogant little chin tilted exactly the way mine did in board meetings.
He held out the worn wooden train.
“Mommy says this was yours,” the boy said, his voice tiny but steady. “Can you fix Leo now?”
I took the small wooden train. The paint was chipped. It was the toy my late father had given me when I was four.
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My phone buzzed in my hand. A text message from Eleanor.
I know where you are, Julian. Get in the car and come to the venue. If you don't put this ring on my finger by 5 PM, Leo’s valve goes to the incinerator.
