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第2章

Author: Ibuprofen
When I came to, the sharp smell of concentrated medical alcohol and iodine was all I could breathe.

The only sounds were the bubbling of the oxygen humidifier and the cold, metronomic beeping of the heart monitor.

"Rena, don't move, you still have a drainage tube under the incision!"

A trembling hand covered mine.

My vision slowly focused on Nina sitting at my bedside, her eyes swollen red, tear tracks streaking her face.

"The babies... where are they?"

"They made it, both of them made it, a boy and a girl!"

Nina dabbed my cracked lips with a damp cloth, but her voice shook. "The boy is two pounds seven ounces, the girl two pounds one ounce. They both had severe respiratory distress at birth and were intubated and rushed to the NICU. Whether they can make it through the next seventy-two hours, that's up to them."

I stared at the ceiling. I didn't cry.

The anesthesia had worn off, and the incision in my lower abdomen felt like a dull blade sawing back and forth, but everything inside me had already gone numb.

Nina pulled out her phone. "I went back to the house before your surgery to grab your insurance card and the hospital bag. You need to see this."

In the video, three workers armed with power drills and sledgehammers were tearing down the nursery walls.

Adrian stood at the top of the stairs, holding a coffee. "Tear out all the partitions. Turn it into a suite with a walk-in closet. Repaint everything in that French vintage white Vivi likes, and lay down imported cashmere carpet."

Vivian leaned against him, protesting halfheartedly, "Adrian, maybe we shouldn't... Serena spent three months putting this nursery together. I can stay in the guest room."

"The guest room faces the street. With your nerves, you'd never sleep. This room is perfect for you."

Adrian didn't even look up. "As for the babies, just put them in the room next to the nanny's quarters downstairs when they're born. Infants don't care about natural light.

"I paid for this house. I don't need anyone's permission."

Nina's furious voice cut through the video. "Serena is in the hospital fighting for her life, and you're gutting her nursery for another woman. Are you even human?!"

Adrian stared coldly into the camera. "If something were really wrong, she'd be crying and begging for help. She's just trying to use the babies to force my hand.

"Let her have her little rebellion. I want to see how long she can last with no money, no car, and a belly full of babies. Once she's cold and hungry enough, she'll come crawling back to apologize."

The video ended.

The only sound left in the hospital room was the slow drip of fluid into the drainage bag.

Nina stood up, eyes blazing. "I'm going over there right now with people. I'll trash the place and throw them both out!"

"Don't."

I caught her wrist.

"Let him tear it down."

The clouds and rainbows on those walls, I had painted them myself at six months pregnant, balancing on a step stool with a brush. Adrian had steadied my waist and said that when the babies were born, he wanted to be the first to hear them cry.

Turns out, those words meant nothing at all.

"Nina, I need you to do two things for me."

"Name them."

"Go to the house. Get my ID, my personal bank cards, and the babies' medical birth certificates. Leave everything else."

I drew a breath. "Then contact Attorney Harper. Hand over all the medical records, the recording, and Adrian's Facebook post."

Nina's eyes went wide. "You're filing for divorce?"

"Not just divorce."

I looked at the rows of needle marks covering my arms. "Freeze all joint marital assets except my personal sole-proprietorship accounts. File for a protective order and preliminary custody. Then file a formal complaint against Adrian for willful abandonment of a critically ill pregnant wife and gross medical misconduct."

He was so sure I was tough, so sure I could never leave him.

I was going to show him exactly what he was without me.
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