Chapter 3 - The St. Jude’s Files
The digital tablet glowed softly in the dim light of Roman’s private study. The room smelled of old leather, bourbon, and expensive cigars.
Pamela sat on the edge of a deep leather armchair, the three toddlers fast asleep on a oversized velvet sofa beside her, their tiny chests rising and falling in unison. Roman stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows, looking out into the dark gardens, a crystal glass of amber liquid clutched tightly in his hand.
Donovan stood near the door, sliding a thick manila folder onto the mahogany desk between them.
“Tell me everything,” Roman said without turning around.
Pamela swallowed, her fingers nervously tracing the hem of her sweater. “There’s not much to tell. I was twenty-seven. Alone. The father... he skipped town when he found out I was pregnant. I worked through my entire pregnancy at a local diner until my water broke on the kitchen floor. They rushed me to St. Jude’s.”
“Go on,” Roman urged, his voice dangerously quiet.
“I remember waking up in a blindingly white room,” Pamela’s voice dropped to a shaky whisper, tears threatening to spill over her lashes again. “Dr. Alistair stood over me. He looked... clinical. Cold. He told me the birth was too traumatic, that the babies were born at twenty-six weeks, and that their little bodies couldn't handle the strain. He handed me three death certificates. He told me the hospital handled the cremation and burial according to state charity protocols because I couldn't afford a plot.”
“Did you ask to see them?” Roman turned around, his dark eyes boring into hers. “Did you demand to see the bodies?”
“I tried!” Pamela cried out, her voice rising before she caught herself and glanced nervously at the sleeping children. She lowered her voice, trembling. “I screamed. I begged. But a nurse injected something into my IV. The next thing I knew, I woke up twenty-four hours later, discharged, with a cardboard box of maternity clothes and three pieces of paper. I was too weak, too broken to fight them. I spent a year believing my babies were ashes in some anonymous municipal trench.”
Roman walked slowly toward the desk, picking up a printed medical document from the manila folder.
“St. Jude’s Memorial Hospital,” Roman murmured, reading the letterhead. “Owned and operated by the Vanguard Health Group. A conglomerate heavily financed by the city’s municipal pension fund... and a few shell companies tied directly to my primary business rivals, the Moretti syndicate.”
Pamela’s head snapped up. “The Morettis?”
“Salvatore Moretti has been trying to break my shipping monopoly for five years,” Roman said, his voice dropping into a lethal, glacial register. “He knows he can’t touch me directly, so he plays dirty. But stealing children? Using a hospital as a nursery farm for high-end human trafficking or biological leverage?”
Roman slammed his glass down onto the desk, the heavy crystal cracking down the side.
“That’s a line even animals don't cross.”
“Wait,” Pamela stood up, her heart pounding. “Are you saying... these babies aren't yours biologically?”
Roman looked at her, his expression unreadable. He walked over to a secure wall safe behind his desk, dialed a heavy combination, and pulled out a manila envelope sealed with red wax. He tossed it onto the desk in front of her.
“Open it.”
Pamela’s hands shook as she broke the seal and pulled out a stack of crisp laboratory reports. She scanned the top page—a DNA paternity and maternity verification analysis performed by an independent, high-security genetics lab in Zurich.
Her eyes scanned down the columns of genetic markers until they hit the bottom line.
Probability of Paternity: 99.99% — Roman Voss. Probability of Maternity: 99.99% — Pamela Hayes.
Pamela dropped the papers as if they were burning her skin. She staggered back against the desk, her breath hitching. “That’s... that’s impossible. If I gave birth to them... how did they end up with you?”
“A year ago,” Roman said grimly, walking over to pour himself another drink, “my wife—God rest her soul—died in a suspicious car accident shortly after bringing home newborn triplets. The adoption agency claimed they were orphans from an overseas humanitarian crisis, brokered through a private medical foundation in Europe. A foundation funded by Vanguard Health.”
The pieces clicked together in the dark room like the gears of a complex, vicious machine.
St. Jude’s Hospital wasn't cremating premature babies. They were stealing them. They were telling vulnerable, impoverished mothers that their children had died, issuing forged death certificates, and then funneling the healthy infants into an elite, multi-million-dollar trafficking ring disguised as a legitimate adoption network—or worse, placing them with powerful men like Roman Voss to create future leverage, control, or chaos.
“They stole them from me,” Pamela whispered, her voice transforming from terror into a terrifying, icy rage. “They lied to me. They made me mourn children who were alive.”
Roman looked at her then—really looked at her. The scared, broken waitress from Bella Rosa was gone. In her place stood a mother whose children had been stolen from the grave.
“They thought you were weak, Pamela,” Roman said softly, stepping closer to her. “They thought you’d take the death certificates, crawl into a hole, and stay invisible.”
May you like
He reached out, his large, calloused hand gently touching her shoulder.
“They made a fatal mistake. They left the mother alive.”
