“Olivia, Mother told us she was meeting with you in a few minutes. You’re looking well,” Caroline told me stiffly.

Before I could apologize for not keeping in touch with her, Charles grabbed her arm roughly and started dragging her down the hall towards me.

“We need to leave, right now,” he growled to Caroline, not even glancing in my direction as he pulled her past me.

I turned and watched them go, Caroline rushing to keep up with her father’s brisk footsteps as he stomped angrily down the hall, further away from me.

With one last look over her shoulder, Caroline smiled at me.

“Good luck in there, Olivia!” she shouted before they both disappeared around the corner.

I slumped back against the wall and rested my hand over my nervously beating heart. Running into the rest of the Vargas family was not what I expected when I came up here. Aside from the anger on Charles’ face, it went better than I thought it would, but I still had Vivien to contend with and this was no time for me to let down my guard. I pushed away from the wall, squared my shoulders and marched right into Vivien’s office.

I open my eyes and think about what happened after I walked through the doors of Vivien’s office. She was angry, rightly so, according to her. She demanded that I do something and I had defied her. Apparently, she wasn’t used to people not doing exactly as she asked.

“She offered me a cup of tea,” I tell Garrett and Parker. “She told me I looked tired and pale and said the tea would make me feel better. After she berated me, of course, for not following her orders. I took that stupid cup from her and she made me drink the entire thing while she stood there watching me. She must have put the Pitocin in the tea, that’s the only explanation. She couldn’t have stuck me with a needle; the closest she ever got to me was two feet away when she handed me that fucking teacup.”

Parker curses, getting up from the couch and pacing back and forth in front of me.

“I don’t even know why she called me up to her office. It didn’t occur to me until a few weeks later that the only thing we talked about was how disappointed she was, how shitty I looked and how that special, organic tea would work wonders. I was in so much shock over her failure to acknowledge the obvious and I guess it never occurred to me that it was all a ploy. Even five minutes later when I felt the first contraction on the elevator, I didn’t consider that she… I mean, it’s almost unfathomable that Vivien could be capable of this.”

I remember that moment in the elevator, doubling over as pain radiated through my lower stomach and spread to my back, so sharp and sudden that it took my breath away.

“Let me just play devil’s advocate for a minute here. Roughly five minutes passed from the time you finished the tea until your first contraction. That’s relatively fast, right?” Garrett asks.

“Pitocin generally starts working about twenty minutes after it’s administered, but that’s when it’s diluted with sodium chloride and an electrolyte solution. She most likely filled up a syringe with straight Pitocin and shot it right into the tea. Without it being watered down, so to speak, it could start working instantaneously,” I tell them.

“And after the doctors got everything stabilized, that bitch came back in your room and put more into your I.V. line,” Parker finishes.

I lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees as I put my head in my hands. Parker squats down in front of me and runs her hand over the top of my head.

“It’s going to be over soon. You have all the proof you need to nail her ass to the wall. We can prove that she used her I.D. to obtain the Pitocin right before you met with her, and that she accessed the maternity floor right around the time that things took a turn for the worse,” Parker tells me. “And her bullshit reasoning for firing you and trying to strip you of your license because you stole the Pitocin and gave it to yourself can all be explained away now. There’s a reason your blood work came back positive for Pitocin and it’s because that bitch gave it to you.”

I drop my hands from my face and look up at her. “I’m going to be the reason that Cole’s entire family falls apart.”

She shakes her head back and forth. “Fuck that shit. His family was a mess long before you and he’s better off without them. They need to pay for what they did you, hon. They need to pay for what they did to both of you.”

I thank Garrett and Parker for everything they’ve done for me, give them both a hug and make my way back to Cole’s house, armed with the information that will change his entire life. His mother can’t lie her way through this. It’s concrete proof that she was directly responsible for what happened to our child. It breaks my heart when I think about how hurt Cole is going to be, and I hesitate for a moment. Then I think about everything I lost, all of the pain and the agony and the loneliness I’ve suffered, all because of Vivien. It’s time to get my life back. I deserve this life with Cole and we deserve to be happy. No matter what excuses Vivien is most likely giving Cole right at this moment, I have the truth and proof on my side.

AN HOUR LATER, I jump up from the couch in Cole’s living room when he walks through the front door.

“Where have you been? I’ve been trying to call you for over an hour?” I ask, stepping around the coffee table and heading towards him.

The room is dark. I never bothered turning on the lights when I got here earlier because the moon shining through the windows brightened the living room enough for me to see. I want to see Cole’s face clearly, though. I need to see him, to wrap my arms around him and feel his strength. I reach for the light switch on the wall next to him, but his hand comes out quickly, wrapping around my wrist to stop me.