Chapter 3

Rowena hugged me tightly. "Don't cry, Janice. From now on, we'll make our own money, buy a big house, and no one will ever be able to push us around again."

At that moment, I thought, 'Love and marriage are just too unreliable. No men, no family for me, ever again.'

All I wanted was a child who was truly mine, bound to me by blood.

I wanted to give that child all my love, so he wouldn't end up feeling as alone and adrift as I did.

That's how I came up with my wild 'keep the child, ditch the dad' plan.

But I never could have imagined that after all my careful searching, I'd end up picking a devil in disguise.

The fever pulled me into an even darker nightmare. I saw Chandler Manning coming toward me, scalpel in hand, slicing into my stomach while he talked. "You wanted my child, didn't you?

"Fine, I'll give you what you want. And then, I'll take everything you have, bit by bit."

"No," I screamed in terror, shooting up in bed.

What I saw was the nurse's smug, gleeful face. She was carelessly scrubbing at my stomach with an iodine pad.

She asked, "Well, look who's finally awake. What kind of nightmare scared you like that? Did you dream your big-shot dreams just crashed and burned?"

Seeing me awake, she dug in even harder with her hand. "Oh, and guess what? Dr. Manning came by to check on you."

She leaned in close, bragging with obvious delight. "He said your issues are more in your head than your body.

"Basically, you're just being dramatic. And he told me to 'take extra good care' of you."

I couldn't stay in this hellhole any longer. I grabbed Rowena, using every ounce of strength I had. "Rowena, that bastard Chandler is the baby's father.

"If I stay here any longer, I swear he'll actually pull a 'keep the kid, ditch the mom' on me."

Rowena looked at my feverish, flushed face and the gruesome wound, tears welling up in her eyes.

She nodded hard. "Okay. Let's go. Right now. We're not staying in this hellhole for another second."

Everything went surprisingly smoothly, almost too easy, honestly.

Rowena got into a shouting match with the head nurse at the station, and every nurse on the floor rushed over to get a front-row seat to the chaos.

With everyone distracted, I clutched the baby in my arms, settled into a wheelchair, hired someone to push me, and made my great escape through the hospital.

We headed straight to another private hospital.

The head doctor who admitted me looked at my wound, her face twisting with concern. "This stitching is really impressive.

"It's a cosmetic technique. If it heals well, you'll barely see any scar.

"But the suture he used actually irritates the tissue and can make it overgrow. Normally, we'd only use this kind of thread for sunken scars that need filling, not for a smooth incision like a C-section."

My heart sank. "So what are the consequences?"

"Well, just look at you," the doctor sighed. "Your wound's not going to heal right. It'll keep getting inflamed and leaking, and because the tissue inside keeps growing and fighting itself, you'll be in way more pain than most moms.

"Honestly, it's pure torture. But from a medical standpoint, it's not causing any permanent damage. The doctor who did this... is a real expert, but also cold-hearted."

Rowena and I exchanged a look, a chill running down our spines.

Chandler didn't want me dead. He wanted me alive, wide awake, and feeling every bit of pain and humiliation.

Rowena was shaking with rage. "We need to sue him. This is medical malpractice. No, it's straight-up assault."

I talked to a lawyer, but he said my chances were only fifty-fifty at best, and it would take a ton of time and money. Chandler's family is powerful and well-connected. I just can't afford to go up against them.

I can barely even get out of bed, and I've got a baby who's crying for milk every second.

"Janice, what are we supposed to do? Are we really just going to let him get away with this?" Rowena asked, her voice full of frustration.

I thought, 'Let it go? Not a chance. I'm keeping this grudge, and he'll pay for it someday.

'But right now, I'm no hero, just a worn-out new mom barely holding it together.'

"Rowena," I turned to her, "help me with something. Once it's done, we'll get out of here and put as much distance between us and this place as we can."

*****

A week later, with the doctors at the new hospital really taking care of me, my wound finally started to heal. It still hurt like hell, but at least it wasn't getting infected anymore.

Through Rowena, I anonymously sent a tip-off email to the biggest media outlets and health regulators in the city.

I didn't mention Chandler Manning by name. Instead, I detailed how the chief surgeon at the obstetrics and gynecology department at Peace Hospital was abusing his position to subject new moms to inhumane treatment, and how the head nurse was leading the charge in bullying patients.

I also attached my medical report from the new hospital, along with a recording Rowena secretly made of the head nurse verbally abusing me.

I wasn't aiming to totally destroy his reputation. That's just not gonna happen.

I just wanted to leave a stain on his perfect doctor persona, something he'll never be able to scrub off. Just wanted to make him squirm.