Chapter 379
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Chapter 379:
“Carmen, listen to me,” Jocelyn whispered, her voice fierce and urgent. “You found that photo of you and Justin from seven years ago. Now you find out your parents lied about your blood and your past. Have you considered that whatever memory you lost might be hiding something incredibly dangerous p>
Carmen closed her eyes, a tear slipping down her cheek. “I don’t know who to trust anymore. My parents lied to me my whole life p>
“Then we don’t trust them,” Jocelyn stated, her CEO instincts taking over. “Justin told you he has the security clearance to pull sealed files. We are going to use him. I will have Gaston force his brother to pull your real records p>
Later that afternoon. The Financial District.
Senator Justin Collins stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows of his private Manhattan office, staring down at the chaotic swarm of yellow cabs on Wall Street and rhythmically flipping a heavy silver lighter bearing the Collins family crest in his hand.
The heavy mahogany door clicked shut behind him. The deadbolt engaged with a sharp snap.
Leo, his Chief of Staff, walked toward the desk. His face was pale and faintly sheened with sweat. He carried a thick manila envelope sealed with bright red tape stamped: TOP SECRET — EYES ONLY.
𝘜p𝖽𝗮𝘁е𝗌 𝖾𝘷еry 𝘄𝖾𝘦𝗄 о𝗇.с𝘰𝘮
“Sir,” Leo said, his voice dropping to a hushed, nervous whisper. “I used your Homeland Security clearance. I bypassed the state courts and hacked directly into the Massachusetts General Hospital cold-storage servers p>
Justin stopped flipping the lighter. He turned around, his eyes locking onto the envelope.
“What did the Golden family scrub from her public file?” Justin asked coldly.
“Everything.” Leo swallowed hard. “They paid off the attending physician. They completely deleted her OB/GYN records and her psychiatric evaluations p>
Justin snatched the envelope from Leo’s hands, ripped the red tape, and pulled out the thick stack of unredacted medical files.
His eyes moved across the dense, clinical text.
Patient: Carmen Golden. Admitted: November 14th. Cause: Severe blunt force trauma from motor vehicle accident.
His eyes dropped to the next line. His breathing stopped.
Patient status upon arrival: 38 weeks pregnant. Fetal distress noted. Emergency Cesarean section performed.
Justin’s fingers gripped the edges of the paper so hard the thick parchment crumpled. A sickening, violent rage boiled in his stomach.
The file detailed the horrific aftermath. Carmen had suffered massive hemorrhaging and severe traumatic brain injury. When she finally woke from the coma, her mind had been shattered. The psychological trauma of the crash, compounded by the physical agony, had triggered severe Dissociative Amnesia.
Her mind had constructed a concrete wall to protect her sanity. She had forgotten the pregnancy entirely. She had forgotten the birth. She had forgotten the man who had given her the child.
Justin turned to the very last page.
It was a photocopy of a birth certificate.
Mother: Carmen Golden. Father: Unknown.
The baby was Aaden — the son Justin had taken from the hospital that night, the son he had raised alone for seven years while the Goldens smuggled the broken, amnesiac Carmen to Europe.