Chapter 8 - The Sanctuary
While Dominic’s life was being dismantled piece by piece, the atmosphere inside Saint Aurelia Medical Center’s private neonatal suite was filled with warmth, light, and the gentle sounds of recovery.
I sat in a plush armchair beside the incubators, holding Liam in my arms for the first time without wires or tubes getting in the way. He was warm, impossibly small, and smelled faintly of baby lotion and sweet milk. Across from me, a nurse was gently lifting Chloe into my mother’s arms—yes, my mother’s side of the family had arrived in full force, though my grandfather was the patriarch who held the reins.
“Look at them, Clara,” my mother whispered, her eyes shining with tears of quiet joy as she cradled her granddaughter. “They are fighters. They have Vale blood in their veins. Nothing will ever break them.”
“They’ll never have to worry about being discarded,” I said softly, pressing a kiss to Liam’s soft dark hair. “Not while I’m breathing, and certainly not while our family stands behind us.”
The door opened quietly, and my grandfather walked in, leaning slightly on his cane but standing tall with unyielding pride. He stopped beside my chair, looking down at his great-grandchildren with a gentle smile that rarely appeared for anyone outside our bloodline.
“The word on Wall Street is that Vance Medical Supply has officially filed for Chapter Seven bankruptcy liquidation,” my grandfather remarked quietly, pulling up a chair. “And our legal team reports that Dominic has packed whatever fit into a single battered suitcase and is currently crashing on a friend’s couch in Queens.”
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“Poetic justice,” I murmured, shifting Liam slightly as he let out a soft, sleepy yawn.
“Justice isn’t poetic, my girl,” my grandfather replied, patting my shoulder gently. “Justice is simply mathematics. You reap exactly what you sow. He tried to subtract you from the equation, and the universe erased him instead.”
