CHAPTER 7 — THE SURROGATE LIE
Stella didn’t wait for Ethan to come back.
She wanted the night to work on me while the bed was still warm and empty.
Her next messages arrived like a flood.
A PDF.
A medical report with a clinic logo I didn’t recognize, the kind of document meant to look official at a glance and impossible to verify at midnight. The highlighted line was blunt:
Infertility — unable to carry a pregnancy.
Then text, the tone almost friendly.
Since you’re married now, I guess there’s no point hiding it.
Ethan chose you because you look like me and because you can give him what I can’t.
Once you have the baby, you’ll get a generous settlement and he’ll come back to me.
I’m sorry he didn’t want me to tell you. I just couldn’t lie to you, future mommy.
My pulse thudded behind my eyes.
I saved everything.
Not dramatically.
Not with trembling hands.
With the same muscle memory I used at work when a deal turned hostile.
Screenshot.
Download.
Save to cloud.
Forward to my hidden folder.
Then I zoomed in on the report.
The font spacing was inconsistent.
The date format was European.
The “doctor signature” was a typed name with no license number.
It didn’t prove it was fake.
It proved it was sloppy.
I called Ethan.
The line rang.
Background noise—too many voices, too much echo.
He answered on the third ring.
“Ava,” he said quickly.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“Busy,” he said, and it sounded like he was walking.
I heard it then, faint but unmistakable: Stella’s voice, close to his mic.
“Ethan—”
I stiffened.
“Put me on speaker,” I said.
A beat.
He didn’t.
“Ava,” he said, more firmly, “I’ll call you back.”
He hung up.
My hand lowered slowly.
The apartment suddenly felt bigger than it should.
I stared at Stella’s report again until anger started to push past dread.
Then I did what I always did when a story tried to swallow the truth:
I began building the timeline.
Ethan left at 10:56.
Stella posted at 11:18.
Stella messaged me at 11:23.
The report arrived at 11:31.
It was too fast to be coincidence.
It was planned.
My phone lit again.
One more line from Stella.
If you’re smart, you’ll take the money and leave before it gets ugly.
I didn’t reply.
I opened my contacts.
Not Ethan.
My attorney.
The one I used for contracts.
I stared at his name and stopped myself.
It was 1 a.m.
And Ethan was still out.
I wasn’t ready to make this war official without one more piece of truth.
Instead, I backed up everything twice.
And I left my phone on the nightstand like bait.
If Stella wanted to keep talking, I wanted her to keep talking in writing.