After the Birth of Three Children, the Doctor Declared My Wife Poisoned, and the Smile of the Woman Standing Beside Me Suddenly Disappeared

The maternity ward door opened when the first cries of my three newborn children were still shaking the walls, and on the doctor’s face I saw such fear as follows a person for the rest of his life.

An hour earlier, Mariam had been lying on the bed and smiling at me, tired but happy. Three small cribs stood beside her. The babies were wrapped in pink blankets, and small plastic bracelets were fastened around their wrists. One said Luka, the second Niko, and the third Elene.

“Look, Mason,” Mariam told me quietly. “We really did it.”

I was kissing her fingers when the monitor beeped strangely. First one nurse looked up, then another. Mariam’s smile disappeared. Her hand suddenly became cold.

“Call the doctor!” someone shouted.

The room became chaotic in one second. The nurses fastened the babies into their cribs, locked the door, and connected the machines. They placed me against the wall. Mariam’s small silver hair clip, which I had found on her pillow a few minutes earlier, was caught on my gray jacket. I clenched that clip in my hand, as if by holding it I could hold on to Mariam too.

“What condition is my wife in?” I asked.

“Step back, Mr. Sloan,” the nurse answered me. “Now you have to let the doctors work.”

But I already knew that this was not an ordinary complication. Mariam had gone through the delivery well. She had no fever. The bleeding had also stopped. A few minutes earlier she had been joking with me, but now her eyes were closed and she seemed to be going far away from the room.

My family members were standing in the corridor. My mother was crying. My father was leaning against the wall and squeezing a tiny yellow baby sock in his hand as if it were the only thing keeping him on the ground.

Vanessa Vale was standing there too.

Seeing her seemed strange to me at once. Vanessa was the financial director of my company and had never been close to Mariam. She had not even been invited today. She was holding a phone, and quickly turned off the screen when I looked at her.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Your secretary called me,” she answered. “She said you might need help.”

“I didn’t call you.”

Vanessa shrugged.

“At a time like this, details don’t matter.”

At those words, coldness poured into my stomach. Details had always mattered. It was precisely on details that I had built my company, factories, roads, and houses. I had never forgiven anyone’s carelessness, especially when my wife’s life was in danger.

Twenty-five minutes later, the intensive-care door opened. Doctor Adrian Bennett came out. A small red stain was visible on his gloves. He came straight toward me and did not look me in the eyes.

“Tell me she will survive,” I said.

He held his breath.

“Your wife is alive, but this is not a complication of childbirth.”

“Then what is it?”

The doctor looked behind me. His gaze stopped on Vanessa for a moment.

“We found traces of a foreign toxin in her blood. We are notifying the police.”

The corridor fell silent. Even the babies’ crying came from far away.

“Did someone poison Mariam?” I barely said.

“We cannot say that yet. But a few minutes ago, someone who brought her a drink was alone with your wife.”

Vanessa immediately stepped back.

“That is absurd,” she said. “I did not enter the room.”

“Who entered?” I asked the doctor.

Bennett took a small plastic bag from his pocket. Inside lay Mariam’s silver hair clip, on which a trace of dark powder was now visible.

“We found this near the bed,” he said. “But before I tell you anything, you have to see a recording.”

At that moment the head of security appeared at the end of the corridor. He was holding a brown folder. He locked the door, came toward me, and undid the folder’s clasp. His hand stopped at the first page……

The head of security placed the folder on the table and locked the door from the inside. Doctor Bennett, Vanessa, and I remained in the room.

“It is the camera recording,” he said. “But we have not watched it all the way through yet.”

“Turn it on,” I said.

The maternity corridor appeared on the screen. The time was nine twelve in the evening. A nurse was standing in front of Mariam’s room, and then Vanessa appeared in the frame.

“That isn’t me,” she said immediately.

“It has your face,” I answered.

The woman put her hand on the screen.

“The recording has been altered.”

In the video, the woman entered the room holding a small white cup. A few minutes later she came out. She did not turn her face toward the camera, but a gold bracelet was visible on her wrist.

Vanessa’s wrist was bare.

“My bracelet is in the car,” she said, although her voice was trembling.

My phone rang. It was the lawyer Alexi Zurabishvili.

“Mason, you must come to the lower floor of the hospital immediately. We have discovered transfers connected with your company.”

“Now is not the time for this.”

“This is exactly the time. If you stay here, you may lose everything.”

Vanessa suddenly looked at me.

“Restrictions have been placed on your accounts,” she said quietly. “And a document made in Mariam’s name has already been submitted.”

“Which document?”

She did not answer me. Only then did I understand that the poisoning was about more than killing Mariam. Someone wanted, while my wife was fighting in intensive care, to take my entire life away.

Doctor Bennett opened the second pocket of the folder.

“Here is the complete laboratory result,” he said. “But only you should see this paper.”

I put my hand into the folder and my fingers touched a cold envelope……

I opened the envelope slowly. The edge of the paper cut my finger, but I did not feel the pain. Doctor Bennett stood beside me, while Vanessa leaned against the door and all color had left her face.

“Read it aloud,” I told the doctor.

Bennett picked up the paper. Only the machine’s even beeping could be heard in the room.

“The toxin has been identified as a powerful neurotoxic substance. The time it entered the body was approximately twenty-five minutes earlier. The sample was taken from the cup found beside the patient’s bed.”

“Who brought in the cup?” I asked.

The head of security rewound the recording. This time he enlarged the frame. The woman’s face was blurred, but a dark red stain could be seen on the nails of her left hand. Then the camera showed the woman’s wrist. Beside the gold bracelet was a small black mark.

Vanessa immediately hid her hand.

“That means nothing,” she said.

“You have the same mark on your hand,” I said.

“Many people have a birthmark.”

The head of security placed a second photograph down. In it Vanessa could be seen entering Mariam’s room. This time her face was clearly visible.

Vanessa sat down on a chair.

“I did not want to kill her,” she said quietly.

I could hear the sound of blood in my ears.

“Then why did you poison her?”

“Because you never saw me. I managed your company for ten years. I covered your debts, hid your mistakes, and stood beside you when everyone threatened you. Then she came, gave you three children, and everything became hers.”

“Did my wife become a target because you loved me?”

Vanessa lowered her head.

“I only wanted her to be unconscious for a few hours. I wanted you to sign the documents. I did not know it would affect her like this.”

Alexi rushed into the room, holding another folder.

“Mason, look at this. There is your wife’s signature on the company ownership agreement, but Mariam signed it three days before giving birth. Her doctor says she was not in the hospital at all that day.”

Vanessa looked at Alexi.

“You should not have had this.”

“I am a lawyer, not your accomplice,” he answered.

At that moment a nurse came out of intensive care.

“Mariam opened her eyes,” she said. “But she repeated only one word.”

“What word?” I asked.

The nurse leaned toward me.

“Safe.”

At that same moment my phone lit up. The message was from an unknown number: “If you open the safe, you will learn why Mariam had to die that night. But know this: there is not only your wife’s secret inside……”