Chapter 1: The Secret Behind the Bracelet
Chapter 1: The Secret Behind the Bracelet
"Stop her!"
Ethan's voice echoed through the delivery ward.
Rachel didn't run.
She simply walked faster, cradling the newborn against her chest as if every second mattered.
Doctors rushed after her.
Security alarms hadn't been triggered yet.
No one could believe what they were seeing.
A veteran maternity nurse was kidnapping a newborn in broad daylight.
Olivia screamed from the hospital bed.
"My baby!"
Ignoring the searing pain from surgery, she tried to stand.
The room erupted into chaos.
A nurse held her back before she collapsed onto the floor.
Outside the delivery room, Rachel reached the neonatal hallway.
She looked over both shoulders.
No one.
For only a second.
Then she ducked into an empty examination room and locked the door.
The baby stirred softly.
Rachel held her close.
"I'm sorry, little one," she whispered.
"But if I hand you back now...
you'll never make it home."
Her shaking hands removed the newborn's identification bracelet.
Then she opened a cabinet and took another bracelet from an emergency supply kit.
Not blank.
Already printed.
A replacement prepared hours earlier.
Rachel stared at the name.
Emma Reynolds.
A baby who had been transferred to intensive care after a premature delivery.
Someone had prepared duplicate identification bands.
Someone inside the hospital had planned to swap babies.
Rachel's heart nearly stopped.
The argument she had overheard that morning suddenly made perfect sense.
"Make sure the Carter baby disappears before sunrise."
She hadn't understood those words then.
Now she did.
Someone powerful wanted Olivia and Ethan's daughter erased.
Not killed inside the hospital.
Simply replaced.
Rachel heard pounding outside.
"Rachel! Open the door!"
Instead of obeying...
she hid the original bracelet inside her uniform pocket.
It was now the only piece of evidence proving who this little girl truly was.
The lock began to rattle.
Someone had found her.
But Rachel knew something terrifying.
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The people outside might not all be trying to save the baby.
Some of them might be hunting her.
