Chapter 8 - The Cost of Silence —
By morning, three families had told me the same story. Approved help. A delay. Then an apology from someone at the foundation who said there wasn’t enough money.
In the accounting records, every grant had been paid.
I sat at the hotel table with the phone against my ear while a father apologized for calling the foundation so many times.
“You had every right to call,” I told him.
“My wife thought we’d filled out the forms wrong.”
I couldn’t answer for a second.
Across from me, Dorian stared at the list.
When I hung up, he said, “I’ll cover every missing grant.”
“Good.”
“Personally.”
“Good.”
“Alina—”
“Money fixes the ramp. It doesn’t fix the months that woman spent carrying her son up the steps.”
He pressed his palms against the table. “I know.”
“You’re beginning to.”
June sent the family accounts to Ortiz with their permission. The company’s outside counsel notified the board’s audit committee. Victor’s financial and records access was suspended while an independent review began. The financing vote was postponed.
What made the rounds was a blurry photo of me leaving the hospital with Dorian. By ten, a business gossip account had posted that the estranged wife of Cross Holdings’ CEO was pregnant after receiving secret fertility treatment.
The post didn’t name a source.
By eleven, strangers were calling me a gold digger who had trapped a billionaire with a baby.
I put the phone facedown.
“Don’t read it,” Dorian said.
“I already did.”
He reached for his own phone. “I’ll issue a statement.”
“About my pregnancy?”
He stopped.
June watched him put it down.
We agreed on a short response about forged documents and an active investigation. No confirmation of private medical details. No photo of us holding hands to make his company look stable.
Before it went out, Dorian asked me to read it.
Then the hospital’s privacy officer called. The suspicious consultation had a backdated service date. Its supporting documents had actually been uploaded eleven days earlier through Adrian’s clinic connection.
“Eleven days?” I repeated.
That was after our final divorce terms had been circulated.
The officer continued. “There’s another item in the imported packet. A letter describing your mental health.”
I felt Dorian watching me.
May you like
“Read it,” I said.
It called me unstable, impulsive, and unable to make sound decisions about my own care.
