All Chapters of OWNED AT 18, CLAIMED BY 28: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

**POV: Laurabeth**The consultation room still smelled of Vanessa's perfume, something expensive and cloying that clung to the air long after she should have left. I stood with my back against the door, heart hammering so hard I could feel it in my throat. Thomas was only a few rooms away. One wrong word and everything I had built to protect him would collapse.Vanessa didn't sit. She paced in slow, deliberate circles, heels clicking like a metronome counting down the seconds of my life. When she finally stopped, the smile she wore was soft, almost pitying."You can stop pretending, Laurabeth. The Zurich records, the timeline, the way Thomas looks at you. I put it together weeks ago. I just waited for the right moment."My mouth went dry. "You're wrong.""Am I?" She tilted her head. "I watched Vinicio fall apart the first time he saw you in that white coat. I watched him start sleeping in the hospital chair instead of coming home. And I watched the careful distance he'd kept from me fo

**POV: Vinicio**The words hit me like a physical blow.“She’s my mom! Dr. Voss is my mom! She just told me! She’s been alive this whole time and she’s my *mom*!”Thomas stood in the middle of the office, chest heaving, one small finger still pointed at Laurabeth as if the truth needed a witness. The door hadn’t even finished swinging shut behind her. She stood three steps inside the room, face pale, lips parted, looking like she had been chasing a storm she could no longer control.I didn’t move.The phone was still in my hand. Teresa’s name had just disappeared from the screen. I had hung up on her mid-sentence because something in her voice had sounded too pleased, too certain. Now that thought evaporated. Everything evaporated.Ten years collapsed into a single, brutal second.The fire. The twin graves. The locket I still carried. The nights I sat beside Thomas’s crib inventing stories about a mother who smelled like rain and irises. The way I had rebuilt an empire around a hole s

**POV: Laurabeth**The loading dock door still swung gently on its hinges, letting in the cold night air and the fading growl of an engine. The unmarked van was already gone. Taillights had vanished around the corner before either of us could reach the fence.Thomas was gone.The knowledge hit me like a physical blow. My knees threatened to give out, but I locked them and forced myself to keep standing. Panic was a luxury I could not afford. Not when my son’s life depended on the next decisions I made.Vinicio stood beside me, gun still raised toward the empty street, breathing hard. The muscle in his jaw ticked once, twice. When he finally lowered the weapon, his voice was pure ice.“Alex. Full lockdown on every exit. Pull every camera feed from the last fifteen minutes. East service corridor, laundry dock, parking structure. Now.”Alex’s voice came through the earpiece, strained and bloody. “Already on it, boss. Head’s ringing but I’m functional. Pulling footage now.”I turned back

POV: LaurabethI didn’t wait for the elevator.The service stairwell was faster. Concrete steps blurred under my shoes as I took them two at a time, coat flying open, phone already in my hand. The hospital security app loaded in three seconds. I had clearance. I had designed half the access protocols myself under the name Elena Voss. Now those same systems were going to help me take my son back.Vinicio stayed right beside me. He didn’t ask where we were going. He didn’t slow down. His breathing stayed controlled, jaw locked, eyes fixed forward. Ten years apart and we still moved like we had never stopped running together.The app pulled the camera grid. East service corridor. Laundry wing. Loading dock approach. I scrubbed backward through the timestamps with my thumb while my feet kept pounding down the stairs.8:41 p.m.The first alarm—the one Teresa had staged—flashed across every feed. Staff scattered exactly the way they were supposed to. Toward the pediatric ward. Away from the

POV: VinicioThe note in my pocket felt heavier than paper had any right to feel.She’s not the only one who knew you were alive. Check who funded my apartment, Vinicio.I didn’t wait until we reached the car. The moment we cleared the hospital grounds I had my phone out again, thumb already scrolling to the one number that never failed me when money needed to talk.Marcus answered on the first ring. My personal accountant. The man who had kept the Rossini ledgers clean through blood and fire for fifteen years.“Vinicio. It’s late.”“I need Vanessa’s apartment records. Lease, payments, every transfer in and out of the account that covered that address for the last four years. Now.”There was a short pause, the sound of a keyboard already moving. Marcus never asked unnecessary questions when my voice sounded like this.“Pulling it up. Give me sixty seconds.”Laurabeth walked beside me in silence, Thomas’s sneaker still clutched in one hand. She didn’t interrupt. She understood that s