Chapter 10 - The Arrival
My heart completely stopped as I looked at the lifeless, blue face of my newborn son.
I used my trembling fingers to gently but quickly unwrap the thick umbilical cord from around his tiny neck.
I laid him gently on Anna's chest and firmly rubbed his back with a clean towel I found in my mother's bag.
The longest, most terrifying ten seconds of my entire life passed in absolute silence.
Then, a sudden, sharp intake of breath echoed through the damp basement.
My son let out a loud, beautiful, and completely healthy cry that filled the entire room with overwhelming joy.
Anna sobbed uncontrollably, pulling the crying baby close to her face and covering him with exhausted kisses.
Ten minutes later, the wailing sirens of a dozen police cruisers finally reached the front gates of the estate.
The lawyer had anonymously called the authorities as he fled, trading my mother's freedom for his own escape.
Armed officers stormed the basement, arresting my screaming mother and calling an ambulance for my brave wife and newborn son.
My mother was eventually sentenced to decades in federal prison for kidnapping and attempted murder, entirely cut off from the family fortune forever.
Anna and I spent the next several months healing, enjoying the beautiful peace of our quiet home with our healthy baby boy.
We finally felt completely safe, knowing the terrible monsters of our past were locked away behind heavy steel bars.
On a cool autumn evening, I walked down to the end of the driveway to check the mail while Anna rocked the baby to sleep.
I opened a blank, unmarked envelope and pulled out a single, glossy photograph that made my blood run completely cold.
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It was a picture of my newborn son sleeping in his crib, taken clearly through our second-story bedroom window just hours ago.
A handwritten note scrawled on the back of the photo simply read, "He has my eyes, Anna, and I am finally coming to take him back."
