Outside the NICU at the private hospital, Eleanor stood with her forehead pressed against the cold glass. She watched the tiny chest of Corrine's daughter rise and fall in shallow, agonizingly slow movements.
Down the hall, inside the nurse's breakroom, Sharon Mills sat on a plastic chair. She was holding her phone under the table.
Sharon loved the proximity to wealth her job provided. She loved trading secrets.
She opened an iMessage chat with a wealthy Upper East Side housewife she knew from a pilates class.
You will not believe who is in the ICU right now, Sharon typed rapidly. Corrine Clarke. She almost bled to death having twins last night. The husband is nowhere to be found.
She hit send.
The gossip spread like a virus. It jumped from group chat to group chat, moving through the elite circles of Manhattan faster than a wildfire.
Within thirty minutes, the message reached a sprawling, century-old estate in Long Island.
Inside the glass sunroom, Madeleine Clarke sat on a velvet chaise lounge. She held a gold-rimmed bone china teacup, taking a delicate sip of Darjeeling tea.
Her daughter, Sloane Clarke, sat across from her. Sloane was scrolling through her phone. Suddenly, she let out a sharp gasp.
Sloane jumped up and shoved her phone screen directly into her mother's face.
Madeleine read the text message. Her perfectly botoxed face hardened into a mask of pure fury. She slammed her teacup down onto the glass table. Hot tea sloshed over the rim, staining the imported lace tablecloth.
"She had the heirs in secret?" Madeleine hissed. "What is this filthy orphan trying to pull?"
Sloane crossed her arms, a vicious smirk playing on her lips. "Isn't it obvious, Mother? She's trying to hide them. She wants to use the babies as leverage to extort more money out of the trust fund."
Madeleine stood up. She smoothed down her Chanel tweed skirt. Her eyes were cold and calculating.
She had always hated Corrine. She hated her lack of pedigree. She firmly believed Corrine had deliberately avoided the family's approved medical team to hide something sinister.
"Mom," Sloane said, her voice dripping with poison. "Think about it. They're premature. Who knows if those little monsters even belong to my brother?"
Madeleine's eyes widened slightly. That was the ultimate nightmare. The Clarke bloodline tainted by a commoner's infidelity.
She pressed the intercom button on the wall.
"Have the driver bring the Rolls-Royce around," Madeleine ordered the butler. "And call the senior legal team. Tell them to meet me in the car."
Thirty minutes later, three black Rolls-Royce Phantoms sped out of the Long Island estate, heading straight for Manhattan.
Inside the lead car, a man in a sharp suit handed Madeleine a thick stack of legal documents.
It was a fifty-page Voluntary Relinquishment of Parental Rights and Divorce Settlement.
Madeleine put on her reading glasses. She flipped through the pages. The terms were brutal. Corrine would leave the marriage with zero assets and would be legally barred from ever seeing the children again.
Sloane sat next to her, painting her nails a bright, blood-red color. She smiled. She couldn't wait to see her pathetic sister-in-law cry.
The motorcade pulled up to the private hospital.
Madeleine and Sloane marched through the sliding doors, flanked by four massive bodyguards in black suits and two lawyers.
The hospital director ran into the lobby, sweating profusely.
"Mrs. Clarke, please," the director stammered, holding his hands up. "The patient is in the VIP ICU. She just woke up from hemorrhagic shock. She cannot have visitors."
Madeleine stopped. She looked the director up and down with absolute disgust.
"My family donates twenty million dollars a year to this hospital's research wing," Madeleine said, her voice like ice. "If I am not in that room in two minutes, I will pull the funding and have your medical license revoked."
The director turned pale. He swallowed hard and stepped aside. He pulled out his master keycard and swiped them into the private elevator.
The elevator doors opened on the top floor.
Two of Eleanor's private security guards stood in front of the heavy wooden door of the VIP suite.
Sloane marched right up to them. She pointed her wet, red fingernail at the guard's chest. "Move out of the way, you hired apes. We are the Clarkes."
The guard didn't blink. "No entry without Ms. Fletcher's approval."
"Move!" Sloane shrieked, shoving the guard's shoulder.
Inside the room, Corrine lay flat on the hospital bed. Her face was the color of chalk. She had just regained consciousness. The massive surgical incision across her abdomen burned with a tearing, agonizing pain. Cold sweat soaked her gown.
She heard the shouting outside.
Before she could press the call button, a loud BANG echoed through the room.
The heavy wooden doors were violently shoved open by the bodyguards. Madeleine Clarke stepped into the room, bringing a suffocating wave of oppression with her.
