A COURT OF SHIFTERS AND SECRETS

F I V E

Which now that I think about it, was probably their way of easing their guilt...

My brain was on autopilot as the interrogation continued.

"My question is why?" Phoenix leaned back in his seat, the utter definition of calm and collected "Why, when denied by the courts for adoption, did you forge these impressive, high quality and government level documents? Why would two outstanding citizens such as yourself and your husband go through so much hassle for this child when you could have legally adopted another one? Why take on such a high risk?"

I think I was suffering a stroke because suddenly it was hard to breathe and a tingling sensation, as if ants were skittering across my face and arm, started up.

I was five seconds away from either puking, passing out, or suffering cardiac arrest...possibly experiencing all three at the same time.

Because not only was I not biologically related to my parents but apparently, I was also kidnapped by them too.

"If you knew my daughter, you wouldn't be asking yourself why" Mom whispered, tracing what I assumed was the "Certificate of Adoption."

"Why?"

"Because the moment we locked eyes, I knew she was mine" My Mom's watery gaze slipped past Phoenix and I could have swore locked with my own "I assume if you know about this, you know everything else about both my family's history?"

Phoenix inclined his head.

"Then you should know that my husband was the on call pediatric resident for the ER" she sniffled "He was the first one to care for our baby girl. She was born premature, possibly twenty-nine weeks, and so small she fit in the palms of his hand"

"As it so happens, I was called into a last minute shift that night when someone cancelled" she said "I was a nurse who happened to be floated to the ER that night because they were short staffed. The moment I saw my husband holding that little girl in his hands, tears in his eyes, through the incubator portholes, wires and tubes covering her body from head to toe, I knew she was ours. Nothing or no one, not even the courts were going to take her away from me."

"So you devised a way to keep her."

"I'm not proud of it" she looked away in shame "But I knew that the hospital or social worker wouldn't look too much into a married couple that consisted both of a Nurse and Doctor adopting an abandoned preemie. They wouldn't ask too many questions or do a deep dive on us. It helped that my sister-in-law was a social worker and took on the case herself. She didn't have too, but she'd seen too many cases about neglected babies who needed loving homes and didn't want this child, a child who potentially needed extra care, to suffer from the same fate."

"And the documents?"

"My husband had a friend from college that was into stuff like that" she shook her head "I didn't ask too many questions because I didn't want to spook them. They were helping us get our baby girl."

"And once she was officially yours, you decided to move across the country so no one would find you" he concluded "Or prosecute you in case someone went snooping and figure out what you've done and who you stole."

"We moved because the guilt was consuming me alive" Mom shook her head "I could't walk into that hospital, surrounded by my friends and coworkers, and face them.

"How pious of you."

Mom's face turned purple "Is this what this whole thing about? My daughter? You kidnapped and brought my children here so you can prosecute me and send me to jail?"

Phoenix scoffed "I couldn't give a rat's ass where you rot."

"Then why am I here?" she snarled at him "Why did you kidnapped my children for something I did?"

Phoenix leaned forward in his chair, his shoulders rigid.

"You're here because you kidnapped something that didn't belong to you" he sneered at her "You've held her captive for eighteen years and her family would very much like her back."

Mom froze "I'm her family."

"Her real family" he scoffed "Not some Stockholm syndrome lunatic."

He stood up and strode to the door, about to open it and leave when mom's voice rang out.

"She was abandoned" Mom spoke softly "She had no family...She was..."

Without turning, he opened the door.

"That's where you're wrong" he said "She had a community full of them."

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I was left in that room for an hour...

A fucking hour to stew in my thoughts and digest all the information I just learned.

Because not only was I kidnapped in the last twenty-four hours, but I also found out that I was not related to the St.James, the people I thought I were my parents for the last nineteen years.

And to top all of that shitty stuff, I had to deal with some psychopaths that were chasing me for an unknown reason.

A hysterical laugh turned scream bubbled out of my throat.

"LET ME OUT OF HERE YOU ASSHOLES!" I yelled "HAVEN'T YOU DONE ENOUGH TO ME AS IT IS?"

Before I could stop it, a single tear streamed down my face, opening the floodgates of emotions I've been trying to hold back since finding out the truth of who I really was.

I let my tears fall, not because my arms were tied to the chair and there was nothing I could do to wipe them away, but because I was allowing myself a moment to get all these pent up emotions out.

And once that moment was done and my heart was finished mourning for the simple life we could have life, when these swirling emotions inside of me were processed properly, I would come back with a vengeance.

Because after today, not another tear or sob would be shed because of my past.

I vowed from this moment forward that I will be focused on the present and what that meant for those who stole my life.

Revenge.