I Ran from Him for Six Months, but When He Saw Me at the Ultrasound Clinic, His Face Changed in One Second

I had not yet taken the ultrasound image from Dr. Morrison’s hand when I saw Caspian Reed at the end of the corridor, and his gaze fell directly onto my belly.

It was two o’clock in the afternoon at the clinic. Rain ran down the windows in thin, restless lines, while the cheap clock on the reception desk ticked so loudly, as if it were counting the time remaining for everyone. My hand automatically went to my belly.

Caspian said nothing else.

Two guards stood beside him. One was in front of the door, the other beside the worn armchair where a pregnant woman was reading a magazine and still could not understand why the whole hall had fallen silent.

But I knew.

For six months I had not thought of him even once without fear awakening in my heart.

“Sloane,” Caspian said quietly.

My real name always sounded different in his voice. As if there were both a plea and an order in it at the same time.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

“I should have asked you that question too.”

His eyes slid down to my belly again. Attached to my hand was a small copper seahorse pendant, which my mother had given me in childhood and which I touched on every dangerous day. Now it was cold as ice.

“Caspian, step back.”

“I’ve been looking for you for six months.”

“And I’ve been hiding for six months.”

A muscle moved in his jaw.

“Why?”

Because I remembered his voice from that night. I was standing in the back room of a Boston club when Caspian said to someone on the phone: “You have to make an example of him.” The next day I saw that man dead in a hospital. Since then, love and danger had become the same word to me.

“You know the answer,” I told him.

“No. I only know that you have my child.”

The baby moved inside me. It was such a strong movement that Caspian noticed it too. For the first time I saw not anger on his face, but something resembling fear.

“Is it a boy?” he asked.

“That is no longer your business.”

“He is my son.”

“And I am his mother. That is why I decided he must grow up far away from you.”

Dr. Morrison came out of the room holding a brown folder. He still wore a white medical glove on his fingers, although his face had clearly changed.

“Sloane, you have to come back to my office,” he said.

Caspian looked toward him.

“Doctor, please do not lie to me now.”

“I protect the patient’s confidentiality.”

“Today that confidentiality may cost her life.”

A telephone rang at the end of the corridor. The receptionist answered, listened for several seconds, and suddenly lost all color.

“They’re locking the doors,” she whispered.

One of Caspian’s guards looked toward the window. A black car had stopped outside, but no one got out of it.

I looked at the folder.

Dr. Morrison pressed it to his chest.

“Sloane, before you open this, you should know that there will be no going back.”

“What is in there?” I asked.

Instead of answering, he took a step toward me. Just then the corridor door handle slowly went down, Caspian reached under his coat, and the doctor opened the folder’s lock…

There was only one sheet of paper inside the folder, and my name was written on it with the surname my mother had carried in childhood.

“Where did you find this?” I asked.

“This morning,” Dr. Morrison told me. “It was put into the clinic’s mailbox.”

Caspian snatched the sheet from me, but looked at me only once.

“I knew this handwriting,” he said.

“Whose?”

He did not answer me. Outside, a car door shut. His guard drew a weapon, and I instinctively covered my belly.

“Everyone leave through the back exit,” Caspian said.

“I am not going anywhere with you.”

“If you do not leave now, they will make the choice for you.”

At these words, the doctor took a small voice recorder from the folder. Its red light was blinking.

“This was with the letter too,” he said. “I did not dare turn it on.”

“Turn it on,” I said.

Caspian looked at me. For the first time I saw a plea in his eyes.

A hoarse male voice came from the recorder.

“If you meet Caspian, tell him that we have already found Sloane…”

The recording suddenly stopped.

A heavy blow sounded on the door. The doctor locked it. Caspian took my hand, but let go at once when I stepped back.

“This is only the beginning,” he told me. “And the man doing this is much closer to you than you think…”

A second blow sounded on the door and the small glass panel shattered. Dr. Morrison hid the recorder under the table, while Caspian stood in front of the door.

“Sloane, stand behind me,” he said.

“Never hide anything from me again.”

“Then listen to me.”

It was three o’clock in the afternoon in the clinic’s back room. The sharp smell of disinfectant hung in the air, and my hands were trembling so much that the copper seahorse pendant scratched my skin.

Caspian opened a small wall safe and took a second recording from it.

“The man you heard six months ago—I did not kill him,” he said.

“I saw his body.”

“I know. He was not killed on my orders. I said to make an example of him because he was selling hospital patients, not my people. I wanted his crime exposed, not his death. But my former right-hand man, Darian Vale, changed the order.”

Dr. Morrison looked at Caspian with a tremble.

“Darian worked at the clinic before he disappeared from the city.”

“He does not work here,” Caspian said. “He controls everything here. The receptionist sold him your address.”

Caspian turned on the recording. First his old voice sounded, strict and cold: “You have to make an example of him.” Then Darian’s voice was added, whispering: “It is enough if people think Caspian killed him.”

The recording ended.

Silence fell over the room.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

“Because Darian wanted to find you. If I got close to you, you would become a target too.”

“I became a target anyway.”

“That is why I came.”

Dr. Morrison took out a second sheet. The times of the clinic cameras and several transfers were written on it.

“All of this came from Darian’s account,” he said. “But the recipient’s name is written on the last transfer.”

I took the sheet in my hand.

I knew the name.

That person stood beside me every week, asked me about my pregnancy, and spoke to me as if she cared about my safety.

The receptionist, Nora.

Just then a call came to my phone. Dr. Morrison’s number appeared on the screen, although the doctor was standing in front of me.

He slowly raised his head.

“I did not make this call.”

After the call was answered, we heard only one sentence:

“If you protect the mother, you will no longer be able to protect the child…”

And the connection was cut off.