The Lie Of That Night Chapter 01
The very night Gretchen Harvey brought her daughter into the world, Paulina Elliott — the widow of her husband’s elder brother — came to take the infant away.
Paulina had brought a robot with her. The robot’s frame was plastered with a photograph of Gretchen’s son, Roderick Mendez.
“This is the latest anthropomorphic robot,” Paulina announced.
Terrence Mendez, Gretchen’s husband, leaned over and adjusted a dial. The robot chirped in a crisp, childish voice, “Mommy!”
Gretchen froze, the sound slicing through her.
“We’ve programmed it with Ricky’s voice,” Terrence said. “From now on, it can keep you company.”
Paulina chimed in, “That’s right, Gretchen. With this ‘son’ by your side, you won’t be lonely. As for your daughter… I’m afraid I must take her.”
With a subtle nod, she signaled the servants to move in.
Gretchen snapped back to reality, a raw, primal scream tearing from her throat. “Get that disgusting imitation away from me! Take it back! Give me back my son, and leave my daughter alone!”
Terrence’s brow furrowed in cold irritation. “Gretchen, stop being so unreasonable.”
Paulina’s eyes rimmed with a faint red. She spoke softly, “Gretchen, I know this is hard on you. But having Ricky rise as my son is for your own good, too.”
A jagged, broken laugh escaped Gretchen’s parched throat as she turned to Terrence. “Ricky is my child. You claimed that because your brother died, you needed our son as his heir just so Paulina could secure her place in the family. After giving birth to him, I never even got to see Ricky, and suddenly, he’s her son?”
She clutched her newborn daughter to her chest, her voice rasping with desperation. “Terrence, I won’t let you take my baby this time. Not unless I’m dead.”
Terrence’s gaze turned icy. He flicked a hand toward the bodyguards. “Tie her up.”
Thick ropes bit into Gretchen’s wrists, pinning her tightly to the headboard.
Then, Terrence reached for a concealed button on the wall. As the current surged through her spine, Gretchen’s world began to fray and blur.
She could only watch, helpless, as Paulina gathered the infant into her arms and turned away.
In the dead of night, Gretchen was jolted awake by a thin, distant wailing. The sound stabbed at her heart.
The ropes had gnawed deep into her wrist bones, leaving tracks of raw blood. With a frantic, desperate strength, she chafed through the restraints and stumbled out the door.
The hallway was a hollow vacuum, and the crying led her toward the operating room.
Gretchen pressed her face to the crack in the door, and when she saw what was happening, the blood in her veins turned to ice.
Under the glare of the surgical lights, her tiny daughter was pinned to a table. Lying beside her was a girl she didn’t recognize.
The surgeon stood there, his masked face etched with hesitation. “Mr. Mendez, the infant’s bone marrow volume is too low. If we proceed with the extraction, she likely won’t survive.”
Terrence stood in the shadows, his voice a flat line of indifference. “Do it. This child was born for the sole purpose of saving Julia.”
Gretchen’s world shattered.
Was Julia… his and Paulina’s daughter?
So they had a child together all along. Her own daughter was nothing more than a source of spare parts.
“Terrence, don’t touch my daughter!”
Gretchen threw herself against the door like a madwoman, the taste of copper filling her mouth. “She’s your own flesh and blood! Let her go!”
The baby’s scream shattered the air, a sound that felt like a blade twisting in Gretchen’s vitals. Tears and blood streaked her face in a grisly mask.
“I beg you… I’ll give it all up. My status, Ricky — you can have it all. Just let her live…”
Gretchen collapsed to her knees, sobbing into the floorboards. “Please… I’m begging you…”
The door swung open. Terrence stood over her, looking down with chilling detachment.
She crawled forward, sobbing and clutching at his legs, but he remained silent. He reached out, took a pre-loaded syringe from a nurse, and drove the needle deep into the nape of Gretchen’s neck.
As the cold sedative flooded her system, her strength evaporated.
Before her vision failed completely, she saw the doctor hurry toward Terrence. “Mr. Mendez, Miss Mendez’s surgery was a success. But the infant… she didn’t make it.”
Through the fading haze, Gretchen heard Paulina’s breathless, joyful whispers, underscored by the congratulatory murmurs of the staff.
Gretchen lay on the floor, feeling as though she had been cast into a bottomless abyss. The last spark of light in her life had been extinguished.
With the final dregs of her strength, she fumbled for her watch and pressed a hidden button.
A year ago, when her biological parents had finally found her, they had given her this watch. They told her that a single press would bring them to her.
Back then, she had refused them through her tears, unable to leave her son — unable to abandon the home she had worked so hard to build.
Now she looked back on it and realized how absurd it all was.
Gretchen pressed the button hard.
She closed her eyes and whispered in her heart, “Dad, Mom… please come get me. I don’t want Terrence anymore.”