Divorce Papers in My Baby’s Gift Box? Fine—I Signed Them! Chapter 06
Seeing Maddie humiliated like that instantly triggered Ryan’s protective instincts.
He rushed forward and stood in front of her.
“What are you doing? If you have a problem, take it out on me!”
But the other man only looked at him as if he were an idiot.
“Ryan, you really are a fool. Don’t tell me you seriously don’t know what kind of reputation Maddie had abroad.”
“She’s been passed around by God knows how many men, and you’re the only idiot still treating her like some precious treasure.”
“Why do you think she suddenly came back to the States? She got involved in someone else’s marriage overseas, the wife found out, and she couldn’t stay there anymore.”
“Do you have any idea how many of us she hit on? How many of us she strung along as her so-called guy friends?”
“Ryan, you’re a complete joke.”
The moment those words came out, the entire room erupted.
Maddie screamed and burst into tears.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“It was Nora! That bitch Nora put you up to slandering me, didn’t she?”
She grabbed Ryan’s sleeve, her voice trembling.
“Ryan, you can’t believe him. Please don’t believe him…”
Ryan froze.
It was as if he couldn’t process those words all at once. His whole body went rigid.
But before he could recover, the police pushed the door open and walked in.
“Maddie Cole? You’ve been accused of intentionally harming a one-year-old child. We have physical evidence and witness statements. Please come with us.”
Mr. and Mrs. Cole Sr. collapsed to the floor when they heard that.
“You little monster. What the hell have you done?”
“What? What do you mean? When did I ever hurt a child?”
Maddie’s eyes darted away, and she instinctively took half a step back.
The detective took out his phone with a blank expression and opened a video.
“This is video evidence submitted by the person who filed the report, along with the child’s emergency room records and allergy report. The records show that you harmed the child more than once.”
The moment Ryan saw the hospital background, realization hit him.
“You went after my daughter? Are you insane?”
Maddie shook her head frantically.
“No! I didn’t! You saw it that day too. I only fed that little girl a few sips of goat’s milk. I never meant to hurt her!”
“That bitch Nora actually called the police? Ryan, hurry up and explain it to them! Tell them I never did anything to hurt anyone!”
Ryan’s head buzzed. He stumbled back a step and nearly fell.
“Goat’s milk?”
“Do you have any idea that my daughter has been severely allergic to goat’s milk since she was born?”
Emma had been premature and frail since birth.
She was severely allergic to goat’s milk and cow’s milk.
Once, after accidentally ingesting dairy, she had been rushed into the ICU and had almost not made it out.
That time, Ryan had stayed outside her hospital room all night without closing his eyes, drowning in guilt for a very, very long time.
After that, no dairy products ever appeared in our home again.
But he had never imagined that because of his own indulgence, someone had almost killed his daughter.
In the video, Maddie roughly gripped Emma’s chin and forced an entire bottle of warm goat’s milk into her mouth.
The child’s little face turned bright red, white foam spilled from her mouth, and she couldn’t even cry.
Cold sweat ran down Ryan’s back. At last, fear and regret hit him.
“Maddie, how did you become like this?”
“Emma is only one year old. She can’t even talk.”
“I thought you were just spoiled and reckless. I never thought you would actually hurt a child.”
Only when he said that did Ryan finally remember what had happened at the hospital that day.
Everything that happened today was like a bucket of ice water dumped over his head.
He stopped paying attention to Maddie’s attempts to cling to him.
He stopped listening to her excuses.
For the first time, he refused to clean up her mess for her.
Desperate, he sped all the way home, cutting through traffic.
But when he pushed open the door and saw the empty house, he froze completely.