Our Wedding Was Ruined and I Found a Husband `18

The medical notes painted a picture of a nightmare pregnancy and traumatic delivery. Premature labor brought on by stress and malnutrition. Complications that had put both mother and child at serious risk. 

She’d almost died bringing my child into the world. 

My stomach twisted, knife turning deeper with every line. 

The nurse’s notes were worse: malnourished, exhausted, chronic stress written into every part of her body. No family. No support. Told to follow up, but she couldn’t afford it. 

How had she gone from taking fifty thousand dollars to living in conditions bad enough to threaten her pregnancy? 

I flipped through bank records Marcus had somehow obtained. The withdrawal Brittany had told me about was there, clear as day. Fifty thousand dollars, withdrawn the day after Laila had disappeared from the pack 

But the account statements that followed told a completely different story. 

Rent payments for a shoebox apartment in a dangerous neighborhood. Medical payments to the low–income clinic. Grocery store purchases that looked more like desperate survival than comfortable living. 

Six months, and the money was gone. After that, there were employment records for minimum wage jobs. Cleaning offices. Slinging coffee at a diner. Pregnant and working herself half to death just to keep food on the table. 

Where the hell was the gold–digger Brittany described? Because this wasn’t it. This was a woman fighting to 

survive. 

My phone buzzed. Marcus. Text from Marcus: “Additional medical records. Delivery.” 

I opened the attachment, and regretted it instantly. 

Emergency cesarean. Hemorrhage. She nearly bled out. The baby was barely breathing, both of them dangling on the edge between life and death. 

And she was alone. No one holding her hand. No one telling her she’d make it. She faced the terror of that operating table abandoned. Because of me. Because I was too blind, too damn proud to see through Brittany’s lies. 

The guilt was suffocating 

And then–the baby. My baby. Severe prematurity. Underweight. Heart murmur flagged from birth. Needed specialists Laila couldn’t afford. Discharged with follow–up orders that probably never happened. 

Because how could they? Minimum wage doesn’t cover survival and a growing mountain of medical bills. 

I poured another drink. Stared at the glass like it might have answers. 

This wasn’t a gold–digger. This was a terrified kid raising a baby in a world stacked against her. 

So why take the money from Brittany? Desperation? Survival? Or–had Brittany twisted it into something it 

wasn’t? 

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Chapter 18 

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The thought chilled me. 

What if Brittany lied about all of it? What if she forced Laila’s hand? 

The phone rang. Marcus again. 

“What’ve you got?” I barked. 

“The trail goes cold six months after the birth,” he said, grim. “Both of them vanish from the system. Maybe she got new socials, new identities, but that would require professional work.” 

“How professional?” 

“The kind that costs a fortune. The kind that takes connections.” 

My jaw tightened. Someone had helped her disappear. Someone powerful. 

“I wish I had something more substantial to report,” Marcus added, “but all of this so far looks to me like she intentionally ran and went into hiding.” 

The phone creaked under my grip. “I can’t disagree that it looks like that.” 

“But now the question is whether she made it to safety… or not.” Marcus cut in. “And what happened to the baby?” 

He didn’t finish. He didn’t need to. 

When the call ended, I sat there, staring at the file, letting every shard fall into place. 

Laila hadn’t been greedy. She hadn’t been scheming. She’d been desperate. Pregnant. Alone. Fighting to survive. 

And I’d left her to drown. 

I called Marcus back, my voice low, hard. “Keep digging. Find them. Mother. Child. Alive or dead- I want 

answers.” 

Because if they’re still out there–if they survived–I owe them everything. 

The truth. A chance to make it right. 

Even if it’s six years too late. 

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