Chapter 22 - The Silent Beneficiary
We didn't open the envelope in the cellar.
Before Ryan’s fingers could even break the seal, another violent spasm seized my midsection, doubling me over against the cold foundation stones. A warm trickle ran down the inside of my thigh.
"Harris! Call an ambulance!" Ryan screamed, his voice cracking with absolute panic. "Her water broke! Clara, look at me! Look at me!"
"The box..." I gasped, my fingernails digging into his forearms. "Take... the box..."
Ten minutes later, the wail of the siren drowned out the pounding in my skull. I was strapped into the gurney of an emergency transport unit, oxygen mask pressed against my face, while the paramedic checked my vitals with rising alarm.
"Blood pressure is 165 over 110," the medic yelled to the driver. "We have signs of early placental abruption! Divert to County General!"
"No!" Ryan insisted from the bench beside me, holding the olive lockbox between his feet and gripping my trembling hand. "She said St. Jude's was compromised! Carter said—"
"County General is five minutes closer, sir!" the medic snapped. "Your wife is going into acute distress. If we don't stabilize these babies in twenty minutes, you won't have a family to worry about!"
The sheer horror of that reality silenced the room. I squeezed my eyes shut, whispering prayers into the plastic mask, feeling the rhythmic, frantic thump of the monitors strapped across my swollen belly.
When the gurney doors burst open into the glaring white corridors of County General's trauma bay, a team of scrubs swarmed us.
"Prepare for emergent ultrasound!" a doctor barked. "Get two lines of magnesium started! Where is the OB on call?"
"I'm here," a calm, female voice sliced through the chaos. Dr. Althaus, an older physician with silver hair and steel-gray eyes, took one look at my chart, then at the monitor. "Clara, can you hear me?"
I nodded weakly, tears cutting tracks through the soot on my cheeks.
"You're thirty-four weeks. The babies' heart rates are dipping during contractions, which means the placenta is under severe stress from the blunt trauma you suffered yesterday," Dr. Althaus said clearly, resting a firm hand on my shoulder. "We are going to give you steroids for their lungs, but if Twin B’s heart rate drops below ninety again, we are going straight to the OR."
"Doctor," Ryan stepped forward, his clothes dripping soot onto the sterilized tiles. He handed Detective Harris the lockbox, but he kept the crisp white envelope in his hand. He had opened it in the ambulance.
"What is it, Ryan?" I whispered, pulling the mask down slightly. "Tell me."
Ryan's eyes were bloodshot, his jaw trembling. He looked like a man who had looked into an abyss and realized the ground beneath his feet was already gone.
"Julian’s original trust fund wasn't $150,000," Ryan said, his voice a ghost of a whisper. "The $150,000 was just the annual maintenance disbursement. The principal trust... is four point two million dollars."
I stared at him, my mind spinning. "What?"
"And according to the amendment Brianna left in that cellar," Ryan continued, reading the legal document with shaking fingers, "if the mother dies before legal birth, or if the pregnancy is terminated due to 'maternal trauma,' seventy percent of the total fund immediately transfers to the legal guardian of the surviving family head."
"Evelyn," I breathed, the horrific puzzle finally sliding into place. "And Brianna."
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"They didn't punch you because they lost their tempers, Clara," Ryan choked out, tears finally spilling over his lashes. "They punched you to trigger an abruption. They tried to kill our children in your womb so the four million dollars would release by morning."
***
