The monitor beside my bed gave a sharp, frantic beep as my heart rate spiked. Another contraction seized my lower abdomen, radiating around my back like a band of heated iron.

They wheeled me into the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at two in the morning.

The room was dim, lit mostly by the soft green and blue glows of digital monitors. In three clear plastic incubators lined up in a neat row slept my children. Leo, Cora, Mae. Tubes curled from their tiny nostrils, and sensors were taped to their paper-thin heels, but their tiny chests rose and fell with rhythmic perfection.

I pressed my fingers against the clear porthole of Cora’s incubator. Her tiny hand, no bigger than the tip of my thumb, twitched in her sleep.

"Mrs. Ward?"

I turned my wheelchair around. A hospital administrator in a dark blazer stood near the entrance, flanked by a security supervisor.

"Natalie," Mallory corrected immediately, standing behind my chair like an armored guard. "Just call her Natalie."

"Ms. Hastings," the administrator corrected smoothly. "I'm Mrs. Vance, patient relations. We need to speak with you regarding your husband."

My stomach plummeted. "Is he still here?"

"He refused to leave the waiting room," Mrs. Vance said. "We had to issue a formal trespass warning after he attempted to push past the locked doors into the nursery ward. He was... extremely agitated. He claimed medical staff were concealing information and demanding immediate paternity paperwork before birth certificates were filed."

The words felt like a physical blow. Paternity paperwork.

He didn't just suspect an emotional affair. He was questioning whether the three fragile lives fighting for breath in these incubators were even his.

"Where is he now?" I managed to ask.

"Security escorted him to the exterior parking lot. His vehicle is still on premises, but he has been informed that if he steps foot inside the building without administrative clearance, he will be arrested." She offered an apologetic nod. "We have placed your room under security protection. No visitors without your explicit photo ID verification."

"Thank you," I said numbly.

When the administrator left, Mallory pulled out her phone. "Look at this."

She turned the screen toward me.

There was a missed call from Chelsea at 1:15 AM. Then a text message sent to Mallory:

*Mal, please tell me Nat is okay! Trent called me hysterically crying from the parking lot. He told me what happened. I feel sick. If I hadn't mentioned seeing Dr. Ross earlier, none of this would have happened! I was just trying to protect her.*

I stared at the screen until the letters blurred.

"Look at the wording," Mallory said, her voice trembling with barely suppressed rage. "*'If I hadn't mentioned seeing Dr. Ross.'* She planted it, Nat. She deliberately dropped poison into his ear knowing how insecure Trent has been since you got pregnant."

I thought back to the last six months. Trent had become increasingly withdrawn. Every time I bought something for the babies, he stared at the receipt like it was an eviction notice. Every time I couldn't get off the couch, he seemed to view it not as physical exhaustion, but as distance.

And Chelsea had been there for every single moment. Dropping by the house when I was asleep to "drop off groceries." Staying late to help Trent carry heavy nursery furniture into the spare room. Texting him reminders about my doctor appointments.

*She was feeding him,* I realized with sickening clarity. *She was stoking the fire while pretending to bring water.*

My phone buzzed in Mallory's hand.

The screen lit up: **Trent.**

Mallory looked at me. "Do you want me to block it?"

"Put it on speaker," I said, my voice entirely flat.

Mallory swiped the screen and held it between us.

"Natalie?" Trent’s voice was cracked, raw, sounding halfway between fury and despair. "Are the babies... are they alive?"

"They are alive," I said. "No thanks to you."

A heavy silence hung on the line, punctuated by the faint sound of rain hitting a car windshield.

"You had security throw me out," he choked out. "Like I'm a dog. Those are my kids, Natalie!"

"Are they?" I asked.

"What?"

"You just demanded paternity tests from hospital administration, Trent. You told security you wouldn't sign birth certificates until you had proof. So tell me—are they your kids, or did you decide they belonged to someone else the second you wanted an excuse to be a coward?"

"I heard what he said!" Trent yelled, his voice cracking violently. "And Chelsea told me—"

"Chelsea lied to you," I cut him off, ice in my voice. "And you were so eager to find a way out of the responsibility of three children that you swallowed her poison whole. Do not call this phone again. If you come near my room, security will have you in handcuffs."

"Natalie, wait—"

I tapped the red button myself.

The call ended. The steady, quiet hum of the NICU rushed back in to fill the silence.

I wheeled myself back to Mae's incubator and rested my forehead against the cool plastic.