I never told my mother-in-law I was a judge. To her, I was just an unemployed gold digger. A few hours after the C-section, she burst into my room with the adoption papers and said mockingly, “You don’t deserve the VIP room. Give one of the twins to my infertile daughter; you can’t handle two anyway.” I hugged the babies and pressed the panic button. When the police arrived, she yelled at me that I was crazy. They were about to arrest me… until the chief recognized me… The recovery room at St. Jude Medical Center was more like a luxury hotel room than a hospital. At my request, the expensive orchids that the District Attorney’s office and the Supreme Court had sent me were hidden away; I needed to maintain the “unemployed wife” image with my in-laws. I had just survived a complicated C-section, given birth to twins Leo and Luna, and seeing them sleeping peacefully, I knew all the pain had been worth it. And then the door burst open. Mrs. Sterling, my mother-in-law, entered the room with a firm stride, exuding a strong scent of expensive perfume and furs. She surveyed the luxurious room with obvious disdain. "VIP room?" she snapped, kicking the leg of my bed so hard I flinched. "My son works himself to the bone so you can spend money on silk pillows and room service? Are you really a useless leech?" She threw the crumpled document onto the table. "Sign this. This is a relinquishment of parental rights. Karen, your sister-in-law, is infertile. She needs a son to continue the family line. Besides, you can't handle two babies." Give Leo to Karen and keep the girl. I froze. "What are you talking about? They're my children!" "Don't be selfish!" she barked, heading for Leo's crib. "I'm taking him now.

The room became so quiet that I could hear the oxygen hissing behind the wall.

Galina Petrovna blinked.

She still doesn't understand.

"Pardon?" he asked again.

The head of security straightened up.

— Judge Elena Vorontsova. Federal District Court.

He said it without emphasis.

But it was precisely that simplicity that broke everything.

The mother-in-law turned so pale so quickly that it looked as if her bones had been ripped out.

Leo started crying again.

Stronger this time.

One of the guards approached her cautiously.

— Hand the child over to the nurse.

She didn't let go of him.

For the first time, I saw real fear in her.

I am not afraid for my grandson.

Fear for oneself.

"There's some kind of mistake," she said, her lips dry. "She... she doesn't do anything. She stays home."

I almost laughed.

But the pain only caused difficulty breathing.

For how many months did he tell everyone that his son was supporting a lazy wife?

How many times have you repeated in my presence that only those who don't work have beautiful hands?

How many times have I looked at my things, my books, my posture, as if it were a suspicious deception.

And yet they did not try to find out the truth.

The humiliating version was enough for her.

Because it was more convenient.

"The patient has a wound on her face," the nurse said. "And a recent suture. Remove the baby immediately."

This time, Galina Petrovna had to give Leo away at the altar.

When they placed the baby next to me, I cried for the first time in all this time.

It's not pretty.

He is not calm.

How they weep for the postponed horror.

When everything could have ended differently.

A few minutes later, the head of the department and the investigator on duty were already in the room.

The police were officially notified.

The installation of cameras in the hallway was requested immediately.

The nurse gave a statement.

The nurse too.

It turned out that Galina Petrovna did not enter the apartment alone.

Veronica actually came with her.

I was sitting in the car near the emergency room.

With an empty child car seat in the back seat.

Upon hearing this, a new wave of cold washed over me.

So it wasn't an impulse.

It's not a family scene.

It's not hysteria.

They got ready.

The documents were fake, but they were carefully crafted.

With the seals of a private notary.

With language designed to frighten.

In a woman after surgery.

At its weak point.

About his loneliness.

They asked me to call my husband.

I closed my eyes.