chapter 2
The Ashford family wasted no time.
By the next morning, my key card to St. Albans Hospital had been deactivated, my locker had been emptied, and a security escort was waiting at the entrance to make sure I didn’t set foot inside.
Nathan’s doing. He sat on the hospital’s board.
One phone call, and I was erased. But that wasn’t the worst of it.
When I arrived at the house to pick up Lily, Victoria was standing on the front steps with four of her friends, all wives of hospital board members, arranged behind her like a jury.
And my daughter was nowhere in sight.
“Where’s Lily?”
“Lily is with her father. Where she belongs.”
“I have joint custody until the divorce is finalized.”
“The judge agreed that, given your… instability… Lily is safer with us.”
“Instability?” My blood turned to ice. “What instability?”
“Oh, didn’t Nathan mention?” Victoria tilted her head, mock sympathy dripping from every syllable. “He submitted a psychological evaluation. Conducted by Dr. Meredith Cole.”
Meredith. Nathan’s mistress. The woman who’d been sharing my husband’s bed was now the one writing reports about my mental fitness as a mother.
“That evaluation is fraudulent, and you know it.”
“Do I?” Victoria shrugged. “All I know is that a licensed psychiatrist determined you’re unfit. Who’s going to argue, you? The woman with no degree, no credentials, and no standing in this city?”
Her friends whispered among themselves, shaking their heads with rehearsed pity.
“Poor thing. She really thought marrying into the Ashfords made her one of them.”
“I heard she couldn’t even get through a basic anatomy class.”
“And she calls herself a doctor’s wife? She can barely read a thermometer.”
They weren’t even trying to hide their contempt. Every word was meant for me to hear.
I looked at Victoria and spoke with absolute calm. “Let me see my daughter. Now.”
“No.”
“Victoria—”
“Here’s what’s going to happen.” She descended the steps slowly, each click of her heels punctuating her words. “You’re going to sign the divorce papers. You’re going to accept the fifty thousand. And you’re going to disappear.
“If you don’t, I will make sure every judge, every lawyer, and every social worker in this city knows that Elara Voss is an unstable, uneducated, gold-digging nobody who has no business raising a child.
“And by the time I’m done, you won’t just lose custody.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “You’ll lose the right to ever see Lily again.”
Something shifted inside me. A wall I’d built over four years began to crack.
For four years, I had bitten my tongue. Played small. Let them believe I was nothing.
I did it for Nathan. I did it because I thought love meant sacrifice, and I was willing to sacrifice everything—my pride, my career, my identity—to make this marriage work.
But threatening to take my daughter?
That was the line.
I pulled out my phone and dialed a number I hadn’t called in four years.
It rang once. A voice answered immediately, as if they’d been waiting.
“Dr. Voss. It’s been a long time.”
Victoria frowned. “Who are you calling?”
I didn’t answer her. I spoke into the phone, my voice steady and cold.
“Activate my credentials. All of them. I’m done hiding.”
The line was quiet for exactly one second.
“Understood. Welcome back, ma’am.”
I hung up and looked at Victoria. The crack in my wall wasn’t a crack anymore. It was a door.
And I’d just kicked it wide open.
“You want a war, Victoria?” I smiled. “You just got one.”
I turned and walked away. Behind me, I heard one of her friends ask nervously, “Who was she talking to?”
Victoria scoffed. “Nobody. She’s bluffing. She’s always been a bluffer.”
Within twenty-four hours, she would choke on those words.