Chapter 17 - THE WOMAN WHO CARRIED DAISYDaisy’s gestational carrier was found one floor above Catherine’s underground clinic.
Her name was Anna Reyes.
She was thirty-two, employed as a neonatal nurse, and recovering from a delivery she had been told ended in stillbirth.
Catherine’s staff had sedated her after labor and removed Daisy before she woke.
Anna remembered holding the baby for less than one minute.
“She cried once,” Anna told the investigator. “Then someone said her oxygen was falling.”
The medical chart showed Daisy’s oxygen had remained normal.
Anna had entered what she believed was a lawful compensated-surrogacy program for an anonymous married couple. She was shown counseling reports, insurance documents, and letters supposedly written by the intended mother.
Sarah had written none of them.
Alexander had signed none.
The letters described years of infertility, a nursery overlooking Central Park, and parents waiting to name the child Daisy.
Catherine had used pieces of Sarah’s real medical history and the hidden penthouse nursery to make the fictional couple convincing.
“Did you intend to parent the baby?” the family-court attorney asked Anna.
“No.”
“Does learning the intended parents never consented change that?”
Anna looked through the hospital glass.
Daisy slept beneath a warming blanket.
“It changes what happened to my body. It doesn’t automatically tell me what role I should have in hers.”
Sarah respected the distinction.
She did not enter Anna’s room until invited.
Their first meeting contained no baby.
“I did not know they used my embryo,” Sarah said.
“I know.”
“I want Daisy safe.”
“So do I.”
“Do you want custody?”
Anna took time.
“I want the record to say I carried her. I want my medical history preserved for her. I want to decide later whether I can write one letter. I do not want strangers calling me her real mother because they are angry at your family.”
Sarah’s shoulders lowered.
“Agreed.”
Alexander’s first instinct was to offer money.
He stopped before speaking.
Anna noticed.
“You were going to pay me.”
“I was going to offer medical expenses and compensation.”
“The court can determine what I am owed.”
“Yes.”
“I will not sign confidentiality.”
“I won’t ask.”
The man he had been would have considered those answers generous.
The man in the hospital room understood they were simply limits he had no right to cross.
Independent testing confirmed Daisy carried Sarah and Alexander’s nuclear DNA. She had been created from the embryo retrieved during Sarah’s unauthorized procedure years earlier.
Anna carried and delivered her.
Catherine directed the transfer.
William financed it.
The parentage court refused to decide the child’s future through genetics alone.
Anna had never intended to become a parent.
Sarah and Alexander had never consented to conception or surrogacy.
Sarah had nevertheless become the primary caregiver prepared to raise Daisy alongside Rose and Violet.
Alexander possessed biological parentage but remained under review because of the affair, his neglect, and his role signing documents without reading them.
Daisy stayed with a medical foster specialist during the first weeks while the court examined safety.
Sarah visited daily.
Alexander visited only when the advocate approved and Sarah was not required to remain present.
Anna visited twice.
During the second visit, she held Daisy for twenty minutes.
“I thought I would feel like she belonged with me,” Anna said afterward.
“What did you feel?” the counselor asked.
“Grief. Relief. Anger. Love, maybe. None of those are a custody plan.”
Anna signed no surrender prepared by Vale attorneys. She entered a judicial declaration describing her original intent, coercion, health, and present wishes.
The court recognized Sarah as Daisy’s sole temporary legal parent. Alexander could seek limited parentage after a separate fitness review.
Anna retained confidential gestational recognition and the right to provide medical information. Future personal contact would depend on Daisy’s development and Anna’s continuing wishes.
No one called Anna merely a carrier.
No one called her mother against her will.
The process for Iris was harder.
Catherine claimed gestational parentage and opposed removal from her custody.
Bianca possessed the biological connection but had intercepted Sarah’s messages, participated in the guardianship plan, and entered the affair for ambition as well as affection.
Alexander had never known Iris existed.
None of the three adults had cared for her openly before the raid, though Catherine had held her during pregnancy and for two months afterward.
A neutral infant guardian remained in place.
Bianca requested supervised contact.
The judge allowed one hour weekly after independent psychological assessment.
Alexander requested nothing until the advocate explained that silence could later be interpreted as disinterest.
“I am interested,” he said. “I am trying not to turn interest into a demand.”
The statement entered the record without earning immediate access.
Sarah brought Daisy home after six weeks.
Rose and Violet lay on a blanket beside her.
Three girls.
Three different beginnings.
No trust monitor activated when Sarah placed Daisy between her sisters.
Then Violet’s cardiac specialist called.
The treatment performed while she was hidden on the forty-fourth floor had not been an ordinary repair. William’s physicians had inserted an experimental genetic vector designed to make her blood compatible with every registered Vale heir.
If the treatment activated incorrectly, Violet could suffer heart failure.
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If it worked as William intended, her cells could authenticate Rose, Lily, Daisy, and Iris.
👉 Violet had been created as William’s child and altered again after birth so her body could become the master key to every other daughter.
