Chapter Ten.

~ Sienna’s POV ~

“You’re pregnant”

Dr Iris’ words echo countless times in my head. They don’t make sense. They can’t make sense.

The air in the room suddenly vanishes as though it’s been sucked out by the vents, by the walls, by the horrific reality of what Dr. Iris just said.

You’re Pregnant.

But that’s impossible, I can’t be pregnant. Vincent makes sure that I take birth control pills each time he fucks me, he practically forces it down my throat if I try to resist.

So how did this happen?

I placed my hand on my stomach. It’s flat. Nothing about it has changed. It feels the same as it did yesterday. It feels the same as it did when I walked out of that penthouse.

There has to be a mistake. Yes, the test results has to be wrong.

“No,” I whisper, shaking my head. The movement makes the room spin, but I don’t care. “Check it again. You’re wrong. You have to be wrong.”

Dr. Iris looks at me with a calm, professional look “The tests are conclusive, Sienna. Your HCG levels—”

“I don’t care about the levels!” I snap, my voice rising, cracking, breaking into jagged pieces. “I can’t be pregnant!”

Not with him.

A baby.

Vincent’s baby.

I close my eyes, and I see him. I see the look on his face when I lost the first one. The relief. The cold, cruel indifference. The problem took care of itself.

And then I see the other look. The one he had when he was playing with Chloe’s son. The fatherly warmth that he never, ever showed me.

Suddenly, the memory of that night rushes back. The smell of hospital antiseptic is replaced by the metallic tang of fresh blood.

My blood. 

I can feel it again oozing from between my thighs as I lay on the living room floor, hot and sticky, pooling around me.

My first baby was gone. And now what?

Another life trapped inside a body that can’t protect it?

Another life created by a man who wouldn't even care less even if it perishes?

The realization hits me like a physical blow to the chest. It’s not just a word anymore.

I am carrying Vincent’s child. I am carrying a piece of the man who broke me,the man whose cruelty knows no bounds.

Panic, cold and sharp, claws its way up my throat.

“No,” I whimper, shaking my head. “No, no, no.”

I can’t do this. I can’t have his baby.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

I scream so loud my throat hurts.

“Sienna, please, you need to calm down,” Dr. Iris says, reaching for my hands. “You’re in shock.”

“I’m calm!” I yell, digging my fingers into the hospital gown.

The beeping of the monitor speeds up, faster and faster, matching the frantic racing of my heart. It’s too loud. Everything is too loud.

“Take it out!” I shriek, clawing at my stomach. “Get it out of me!”

“Sienna, stop! You’ll hurt yourself!” Dr. Iris lunges forward, trying to grab my wrists.

I thrash violently in her grip ripping the IV line out of my arm in the process.

“Is anyone out there!” Dr. Iris yells, abandoning her calm demeanor as she tries to hold me down.

“PLEASE JUST GET IT OUT OF ME!”

Suddenly the door of the hospital room is thrown open and the man from earlier y in.

“What the hell is going on here?”

~~~~~~~~~

~ Alistair’s POV ~  

I’m leaning against the wall in the hallway, staring at the closed door of Sienna’s hospital room.  

What the fuck am I doing here? 

I should be at home with my mother and Olivia. I should be anywhere but here, hovering outside the room of the woman who married my rival.  

But how on earth did she end up with a despicable, spineless brat like Vincent Ashford? 

I run a hand through my hair while the other hand flips the cap of my lighter open.  

Clink. Close it. Clank.

Usually, the rhythm calms me but today it’s doing absolutely nothing.  

My driver, Evans, is sitting on a bench down the hall, looking like a drowned puppy. He’s terrified I’m going to fire him for hitting her. 

And honestly? I probably should. But it’s not entirely his fault. The visibility was shit, and she walked right into the road.  

The hospital smells like lemon cleaner and medicine. I hate it. I fucking hate hospitals. They remind me of things I buried fifteen years ago.  

That’s why I don’t understand why I’m still in this place. 

My suit jacket is long gone, discarded in the car. My shirt is dry now, but wrinkled. I look down at my hands. There’s a faint smear of blood on my cuff.  

Sienna’s blood.  

She weighed nothing when I picked her up and carried her into the car. Throughout the entire ride to the hospital, I held her in my arms, and it felt like carrying air wrapped in skin and bones.  

I watched her shallow breathing, counting every rise and fall of her chest. I found myself praying she would live, just so I could figure out why seeing her hurt made me want to burn the world down.  

Beep. Beep. Beep.  

The sound of a machine pulls me back to the present. I push off the wall.  

Dr. Iris has been in there for ten minutes. I should leave. I paid the bills. I did my part. I should be plotting the Ashfords’ destruction, figuring out why the last attempt failed. Not standing here doing nothing.  

I turn to leave. But just as I walk a short distance down the hall, a scream from her room fills the place, breaking the heavy silence of the hallway in the VIP wing.  

It’s not just a scream of pain. It’s worse. It is the sound of pure, unadulterated agony.  

It sounds like someone is being torn apart from the inside out.  

Sienna.  

I don’t think. I just turn back, cover the distance in two long strides, and shove the door to her hospital room open.  

“What the hell is going on?”  

The scene in front of me is chaotic.  

Dr. Iris is trying to grab Sienna’s hands, but Sienna is fighting her with a strength that shouldn’t be possible for someone in her condition.  

“Get it out!” Sienna screams, her voice breaking. “Take it out of me! I won’t have it!”  

She isn’t just crying. She is frantic. Screaming and thrashing on the hospital bed like a caged bird.  

“Please, just get it out!” she pleads to no one in particular. “I can’t carry his child. Please.”  

“Come help me hold her!” Dr. Iris shouts, struggling to hold Sienna in place.  

Moving closer to her bed, I grab Sienna’s wrists and pin them down to the mattress.  

“Sienna, stop!” I command, applying more force to my grip to keep her from hurting herself.  

“What happened?” I ask directing the question to Dr Iris who is busy drawing a colorless liquid into a syringe.  

“She’s in shock,” Dr. Iris says, “I told her the results of the test and she just—she snapped.”  

“NO!” Sienna screams in my face bucking her hips off the mattress with a force that makes the bed shake.  

Jesus, she’s strong for someone who got hit by a car and has been unconscious for twenty hours.  

“Sienna, look at me!”  

But she doesn’t hear me. She’s drowning in her own fear.  

“Sedate her now!”  

Dr. Iris nods, jams the needle into the IV port, and injects the liquid into her veins.  

Sienna fights for another second, her body straining against mine. “No… no… please…”  

Then, the fight drains out of her as the effects of the medicine kicks in. Her thrashing begins to slow down.  

Her eyes, filled with tears, lock onto mine one last time.  

“Please…” she mouths as her eyes close, and I feel her body relaxing.  

I stand there for a moment, my hands letting go of her wrists as I look down at her sleeping face, still wet with tears.  

“Is she going to be okay?” I ask Dr Iris who is adjusting her IV and tucking her into the sheets around her.  

“Physically? Yes. The sedative will keep her out for a few hours. But mentally... clearly, there is significant trauma regarding this pregnancy. And this ‘Vincent’ character.”  

In her sleep, she looks peaceful, almost innocent. It’s hard to believe this is the same girl who was just screaming for an abortion few seconds ago.  

‘I won’t have his baby. Get it out.’

Her words replay in my head.  

I look at her stomach. It’s flat. There is a life growing in there. A life she hates because of the man who put it there.  

She is carrying Vincent Ashford’s child. An heir to the empire I plan to burn to the ground.  

I brush a stray hair from her forehead, my touch lingering for a while before I catch myself.  

A surge of anger flows through me.  

I am going to make Vincent Ashford pay for everything he has done to her.  

For every tear. Every scar. And I’m going to enjoy destroying his life.  

I walk to the window, staring out at the city lights. I pull out my lighter, flipping the cap open and closed, the metallic click-clang echoing in the room.  

“When she wakes up, let me know. Until then, nobody enters this room but you.”  

Dr Iris just looks from me to Sienna and then back at me. “Noted.” she replies before leaving the room.  

I watch Sienna’s reflection from the glass.  

Vincent Ashford.  

You didn’t just hurt a woman. You broke something that belongs to me now.  

And you will pay dearly.