Chapter 3

Three days passed with no response. I checked the forum every hour, my anxiety mounting with each empty inbox notification.

Dr. Price came for her second visit. This time, she brought a different approach.

"Lily, I want to try something." She pulled out a series of inkblot cards. "Just tell me what you see."

A Rorschach test. Classic tool for fabricating a psychosis diagnosis. Whatever I said could be interpreted as delusional thinking.

"A butterfly," I said to the first card.

"A flower," I said to the second.

"Two people shaking hands," I said to the third.

Dr. Price's pen moved slowly. She was struggling to find pathology in my painfully normal answers.

"You're very literal," she said, and I caught the edge in her voice.

"I'm a simple person." I smiled.

After she left, I overheard Alexander on the phone in his study. The door was cracked open, and I pressed myself against the wall to listen.

"The surrogate is more composed than expected. Dr. Price needs more time." A pause. "No, Mother. The plan hasn't changed. After the delivery, she goes to Greystone. The records get sealed. The child is mine."

Mother.

So this wasn't just Alexander's scheme. His mother was involved.

"I don't care what it costs," he continued. "Offer Dr. Price another hundred thousand. I want that diagnosis locked in before the third trimester."

I retreated to my room on shaking legs. They were escalating.

That night, my tablet pinged.

A reply on the forum.

"My name is Rachel Torres. I'm a legal advocate specializing in surrogacy rights. Your situation sounds extremely serious. I need more details. Can you tell me where you are?"

My fingers flew across the screen. I described the estate, the contract, the hidden clauses, Dr. Price's visits. I told her everything except my real name — I was too afraid Alexander's people might trace it.

Rachel's reply came within minutes.

"This is illegal on multiple levels. Unlawful confinement, contract fraud, conspiracy to commit involuntary psychiatric commitment. But I need physical evidence — the real contract, medical records, any recordings. Without proof, it's your word against a billionaire's."

Evidence. The real contract was in Alexander's study, which was locked every night with a biometric scanner.

But I remembered something. When I'd knocked the folder off his desk, I'd noticed a backup hard drive plugged into his computer. If the contract was saved digitally…

The next morning, I asked the housekeeper, Clara, for cleaning supplies.

"I want to help tidy the common areas," I said sweetly. "I'm going stir-crazy just sitting around."

Clara was the closest thing I had to a friend here. She was in her sixties, a grandmother herself, and she sometimes left extra cookies on my tray.

"That's sweet of you, dear." She handed me a caddy of supplies. "But stay out of Mr. Blackwell's study. He's very particular about that room."

"Of course." I nodded obediently.

That afternoon, while Alexander was at the office and the security team was doing their shift change — a fifteen-minute window I'd been tracking for days — I stood outside the study door.

The biometric scanner required a fingerprint. But I'd noticed that Alexander used a glass of whiskey every evening in the study, and the housekeeper collected it every morning.

I'd taken that glass from the kitchen before Clara could wash it. Using a piece of clear tape and graphite powder from a pencil — a trick my late father, a locksmith, had taught me — I'd lifted a clean thumbprint.

My hands trembled as I pressed the tape to the scanner.

The light turned green.

Inside, I moved fast. The hard drive was still plugged in. I connected it to my tablet using a charging cable and copied everything I could in six minutes flat.

Contracts. Emails. Financial records. And one folder labeled "GREYSTONE — PHASE 2."

I opened it.

Inside was a floor plan of the psychiatric facility, a pre-written admission form with my name already on it, and a schedule that read:

"Week 1–2: Sedation protocol. Week 3–4: Controlled interviews under medication. Week 5–8: Gradual introduction of diagnosis to patient. Week 9–12: Patient acceptance and discharge with permanent psychiatric record."

They weren't just going to lock me up. They were going to drug me until I believed I was actually insane.

A sound in the hallway made me yank the cable free. I shoved everything back in place and slipped out, my heart hammering so loud I was sure the cameras could hear it.

Back in my room, I transferred the files to Rachel through the forum's clunky attachment system. It took forty minutes. I nearly threw up twice.

Her reply came at midnight.

"Lily. This is worse than I thought. I'm contacting the FBI. But I need you to do one more thing."

"Alexander's mother, Margaret Blackwell — she's on the board of Greystone Psychiatric. She OWNS the facility. This goes deeper than one contract. I think you're not the first surrogate they've done this to."

My blood turned to ice.

Not the first.

How many women had been locked inside that facility, drugged into silence, their babies stolen?

Rachel's next message was the one that changed everything.

"I found records of three other surrogates who were admitted to Greystone in the past decade. All three were diagnosed with postpartum psychosis. All three lost custody permanently. And Lily — all three are still inside."