The Price of Pride

Chapter 41

"Where is he?"

Reyhan looks frantically around the nursery until she spots the baby being checked by a doctor. She lets out a huge sigh of relief at his hungry cries. His lungs sound good. Healthy. He's just angry and hungry. She can help with that later when she feeds him.

Emir rolls her wheelchair until they're closer to where the baby is, and when the doctor is done, the nurse wraps him up and hands him to Reyhan. Reyhan raises the baby to her face to get a nose full of his baby scent. Then she does it again. She counts all of his fingers and his toes, just to make sure they're there. Logically, she knows none have gone missing in the few hours that he was gone. But she can't help herself.

She wipes away a stray tear that has drifted down her cheek before looking back up at the doctor.

"How is he? She didn't hurt him, did she?"

"He's fine," the doctor assures her.

She tunes everything out after that. All she cares about is that her baby is fine and that he's back in her arms. She's not letting him go again. Not while Cavidan is still a danger to him. Out of all the things Cavidan has done to her, she never imagined the woman capable of something like this. She actually stole Reyhan's baby. And used him to blackmail Emir. Reyhan can't help but wonder what kind of a person does that. But she doesn't have to wonder. She can remember what Cavidan has made her live through. From the very beginning, the woman has only done Reyhan evil. Maybe now it will come to a stop.

"When can we take them home?" Reyhan hears her mother ask. "Neither of them can stay here. We'll hire whatever kind of care is necessary, get whatever equipment is needed. We can even have a clinic set up for them both in the house. Just let us know what we need."

Reyhan lets out another sigh of relief. She would feel much safer at home. She sends her mother a smile of thanks.

"Looks like we're going home, my precious baby boy," she whispers to the baby. "Home where we can keep you safe."

Too soon the nurse is taking the baby from her again. She wants to protest, but she understands it's for a final check up and tests before the doctor will let him go home. She's going to have to have the same sort of check up from her own doctor.

"We'll stay with him," her mother assures her, and she reluctantly allows Emir to wheel her back to her room.

On the way, they run into Zafer and Barış. Emir grabs Zafer in a tight embrace. Overcome with emotion, he doesn't say anything. He just hugs his friend. Reyhan watches with tears in her eyes.

"Zafer, we can't thank you enough," she says. "If you hadn't found that nurse ..."

"I didn't do much, Reyhan," he says humbly, before turning to Barış, a look of awe filling his eyes. "It was mostly your family. They didn't let up on the hospital until we had results. We needed access to the cameras and security system. And once we did, it was easy enough to track the nurse's movements throughout the hospital. We were able to see where she took the baby and go get him back. We got lucky. Barış knew exactly what she looked like. So once we got access to the system, it was just a matter of having enough eyes to search for her on the cameras. And your father made sure we had the access and the people we needed."

"It was Baba doing what Baba does," Barış confirms. "He has a way of being ... very persuasive."

At his laugh, Reyhan gives him a strange look.

"He kind of bought the hospital," Barış explains.

"The whole hospital?" Even Emir is in shock. It isn't unheard of for large donations to be made to certain departments to encourage the hospital to allow certain liberties for patients with money. But he's never heard of anyone just outright buying an entire hospital. Even more shocking is how nonplussed Barış is about the whole thing. "How much money do you people have?"