The Reborn Heiress Strike Back-Chapter 76 - 75 - The Child He Never Knew
The records room at St. Vincent Memorial was cold.
Not temperature-cold—
but memory-cold.
Nick Carter stood stiffly as the archivist slid a thin, yellowed folder across the counter.
"Miss Allyson Miller," the man said.
"Date of admission... seven years ago."
Nick’s heart clenched.
Seven years ago.
The night everything broke.
The night he became the villain in his own life.
His fingers trembled as he opened the file.
He expected medical jargon. Crash notes. Injury reports.
He did not expect the first page.
A printout clipped to the top corner.
Black and white.
Grainy.
Circular.
Nick’s breath stopped.
"...an ultrasound?" he whispered.
His hand shook violently.
The archivist cleared his throat softly.
"It was routine. The doctor didn’t know she’d been hit yet. They checked her vitals earlier that afternoon. Miss Miller was here for—"
Nick didn’t hear the rest.
His vision blurred.
The world tilted.
Two words burned themselves into his brain:
Gestational Age: 6 Weeks.
Estimated Due Date: —
Nick stumbled back a step, gripping the counter.
"No," he whispered.
"No, no—this can’t be right."
He read it again.
And again.
The doctor’s notes stabbed through his heart:
Nick unaware of pregnancy.
Follow-up recommended.
Record forwarded to husband, Nick Carter.
A note scribbled at the bottom:
Husband unreachable.
Nick squeezed his eyes shut, pain ripping through him.
Ally had been two weeks pregnant when she was hit.
Their baby.
Their child.
Their future.
And he never knew.
He never even gave her the chance to tell him.
His knees threatened to buckle.
He pressed a hand to his mouth, swallowing a sob.
"Sir?" the archivist asked carefully. "You okay?"
Nick shook his head once—sharply, helplessly.
He wasn’t okay.
He was drowning.
---
The Parking Lot – Minutes Later
Nick reached his car somehow.
He didn’t remember walking.
Didn’t remember breathing.
He just sat in the driver’s seat, slamming the door shut before the tears broke free.
He pressed the ultrasound photo against his forehead.
A quiet, broken sound came out of him.
Half sob.
Half confession.
"Ally... my God..."
His shoulders shook uncontrollably.
He remembered how she’d tried to tell him "something important" the night before the accident.
How he’d brushed her off, claiming Kate was more important.
Her soft voice.
Nick, please, it’s important—
And he’d walked away.
Walked away from his wife.
Walked away from their baby.
"Jesus Christ," he whispered, chest caving. "What did I do?"
He looked down at the photo again.
A small white circle.
A beginning that never got to grow.
A life that ended before he even knew to love it.
Nick leaned forward, forehead resting against the steering wheel, tears pouring freely now.
"I’m sorry..." he whispered into the leather.
"I’m so sorry... I didn’t know... I should’ve been there..."
He didn’t know how long he cried.
By the time he lifted his head, the sun had changed position.
His eyes were red.
His hands stiff.
But he put the ultrasound back into the folder carefully—like it was made of glass—and started the engine.
There was only one place he could go.
---
Outside Samantha’s Building — Dusk
Nick parked across the street, engine still running.
He held the ultrasound in both hands.
Stared at it the way a drowning man clings to the last piece of floating wood.
Lights flickered on in Samantha’s office window.
A silhouette passed behind the glass.
Her.
Alive.
Breathing.
But carrying a wound he had never truly seen.
A wound he had helped create.
Nick pressed his forehead against the steering wheel again, gripping the photo so tightly it bent at the edges.
"Ally..." he whispered.
"...I didn’t just lose you."
His voice cracked.
"I lost our child too."
A raw exhale escaped him.
"But you bore that alone."
He clenched his jaw, wiping his face roughly, eyes burning with grief and determination.
"I’m finding out everything," he whispered.
"Every person. Every lie. Every hand that touched that accident."
His grip tightened.
"And I will burn it all if I have to."
He lifted his gaze to Samantha’s window—
—but didn’t get out of the car.
He couldn’t face her.
Not like this.
Not while holding the proof of the life he helped destroy.
Instead, Nick sat there in the dark, ultrasound photo pressed to his chest, shaking with silent grief...
...while the woman he lost stood just a few floors above him, unaware that the truth he had uncovered tonight would change everything.
*******
The double glass doors to Samantha’s office slammed open so hard the walls trembled.
Jake shot up from his desk outside, startled.
"Nick—"
But Nick didn’t hear him.
He didn’t hear anything.
His face was pale—white, ghost-like—eyes swollen and red as if he hadn’t slept in days. His chest rose and fell in uneven, broken breaths as he marched down the hallway like a man walking into a storm he knew he wouldn’t survive.
He didn’t knock.
He didn’t hesitate.
He shoved open Samantha’s office door.
---
Samantha was at her desk, framed by the skyline, pen in hand, calmly reviewing a stack of restructuring reports. Her posture was straight, her breathing steady—untouchable as stone.
The kind of calm someone earns only after surviving hell.
She didn’t look up at first.
But she felt him.
She always felt him.
"Nick," she said quietly, still flipping a page, "I’m in the middle of—"
Something small, fragile, and devastating hit the desk in front of her.
A crumpled, faded medical printout.
An ultrasound.
A tiny speck of life.
Samantha’s hand stopped mid-page.
For one heartbeat, she froze.
Only one.
Then she slowly raised her chin and looked at him with the same cool, lethal composure she used on enemies... and ghosts.
Nick’s voice cracked like something breaking open inside him.
"Why didn’t you tell me?"
His hands were shaking violently.
His chest heaved.
He looked like he had been gutted.
Samantha stared at him. Silent. Expression unreadable.
Nick slammed his hand on the desk.
"WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME, SAMANTHA?"
Her eyes flicked briefly—very briefly—to the ultrasound.
He caught it.
The flicker.
The pain.
The memory.
But when she spoke, her voice was calm again. Dead calm.
"Would it have changed anything?"
Nick flinched as if she slapped him.
She set her pen down neatly on the desk.
Folded her hands together.
Tilted her head slightly, studying him.
"You chose her," she said softly.
"No child would have saved us."
Nick’s breath shattered on the way out.
"That’s not fair," he whispered.
"That’s not—Samantha, I didn’t know. I didn’t know she was pregnant."
He looked at the ultrasound again, as if it were a confession written in light.
"She was six weeks," he choked.
"Six weeks, Sam... I—I would have—God—"
Samantha cut him off, voice colder than winter rain.
"No."
She leaned back in her chair.
"No, Nick. Do not rewrite history to soothe your guilt."
He looked up, eyes flooded with tears.
She held his gaze.
"You didn’t lose the child," she said, each word a blade.
"You threw us both away."
The sentence hit him harder than any physical blow could.
His knees weakened.
His hands clutched the armrest of the chair beside him as he collapsed into it, head falling forward, breath trembling, tears slipping soundlessly down his face.
He didn’t sob.
He didn’t make a sound.
He just sat there, breaking apart piece by piece.
Samantha watched him.
Not with hatred.
Not with pity.
With something far more complicated—grief carved into steel. Pain calcified into distance.
He whispered, voice small and ruined—
"I should have protected you."
Her eyes flickered.
"And yet you didn’t."
Nick lifted his head, tears blurring his vision.
"Ally... Sam... please... please—"
"Don’t," she said quietly.
He froze.
Her voice was so soft it almost hurt to hear.
"You don’t get to beg for what you buried."
Nick shook his head desperately.
"Samantha... I didn’t know. I swear—"
She rose from her chair slowly, walking around the desk until she stood in front of him. Close enough to touch, close enough to hurt.
He looked up at her like a dying man.
"Look at me," she said.
He did. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺
And in her eyes, he saw every piece of the girl he lost. The love he destroyed. The future he killed.
The child he never met.
She wiped a single tear from her cheek—not out of weakness, but out of fury at herself for even letting one fall.
"You don’t get to mourn what you didn’t cherish," she whispered.
Nick broke again, breath catching in his throat.
"Samantha... I’m sorry. I’m so—so—sorry."
She exhaled slowly, as if the weight of the world pressed against her ribs.
Then she stepped back.
Just one step.
And that one distance was enough to feel like a lifetime.
Her voice was almost a whisper.
"I survived without your apology."
His face crumpled.
"I didn’t."
Samantha closed her eyes.
Just for a moment.
Then she opened them again—cold, composed, armored.
The storm was over.
The truth was spoken.
And there was no going back.
She turned away from him, facing the window, her silhouette outlined by the harsh late afternoon light.
Nick remained seated behind her, shoulders shaking, tears falling quietly onto his hands.
Neither spoke.
The room was silent except for two hearts—one breaking, one already broken long ago.
