CHAPTER 3.

Cole’s POV.

The moment the double doors of the emergency ward swung shut, swallowing Sabrina into the chaos of the hospital, the silence that followed was deafening.

I stared at my hands. They were trembling. A smear of her blood, dark and drying, stained my cuff.

This was a nightmare on repeat. I had seen her like this before—pale, broken, her body failing her while her heart refused to give up. I paced the length of the waiting room, the smell of antiseptic burning my nostrils. I felt useless. A man is supposed to protect the things he cares about, and I had failed.

I pulled out my phone. Leon needed to be here. Not because he deserved to be, but because she was his wife.

I called. Decline.

I called again. Decline.

Then, a text. "In a meeting. Stop calling. Come to the office if it’s business."

Business? His wife was bleeding out on a gurney, and he was talking about business?

Rage, hot and blinding, flared in my chest. I couldn't just sit here waiting for news. I needed to look him in the eye. I needed to drag him here myself if I had to.

"I'll be back," I told the nurse at the desk, my voice tight. "If anything changes, call me immediately."

The drive to Leon’s office was a blur of red lights and blaring horns. My grip on the steering wheel was so tight my knuckles turned white. All I could see was Sabrina’s face in the passenger seat—the way her eyes had rolled back, the way she had whispered please before the darkness took her.

When I stormed into Leon’s office, his assistant tried to stop me, but one look at my face made her retreat. I pushed the heavy door open.

Leon was sitting behind his desk, looking infuriatingly calm. He was reviewing a document, a glass of scotch resting near his hand. He looked up, a polite, empty smile plastered on his face.

"You came," he said, as if we were meeting for drinks. "I assume you’re done playing ambulance driver?"

"Ambulance driver?" I stepped forward, the air in the room growing heavy. "She collapsed, Leon. She’s in the emergency ward. The doctors are worried."

He leaned back, taking a slow sip of his drink. "And? It’s not the first time, is it? Sabrina has a flair for the dramatic."

"She’s losing the baby," I snapped, my voice echoing off the walls.

Leon didn’t flinch. He didn’t blink. He just set the glass down.

"I know. I was informed by the butler," he said. His voice was devoid of emotion.

"I’m done, Cole. I filed the papers yesterday. This cycle... I’m checking out."

I stared at him, my brain struggling to process the cruelty. "She is fighting for her life right now. You can’t wait until she’s stable to destroy her world?"

"Why wait?" He shrugged. "I’ve wasted seven years waiting. I’m already with someone else. We’re getting married."

"You're what?"

Before I could process the absurdity of his words, the private bathroom door in his office opened.

The air left my lungs.

It was Zara. The one who got away. The woman Leon had obsessed over in college, the one who had rejected him because he was poor, leaving Sabrina to pick up the pieces.

But she wasn't just here. She was heavily pregnant.

She walked in with the confidence of a woman who had already won, her hand resting protectively over a massive baby bump. She barely glanced at me.

"Hey, baby," she cooed, walking to Leon.

Leon stood up immediately—faster than I’d ever seen him move for Sabrina—and guided her to a chair. He kissed her forehead with a tenderness that made me sick.

"Zara is the one I’m marrying," Leon said, looking at me with defiance. "She’s carrying my heir. She’s due in a month."

My ears rang. "You... you’ve been cheating on Sabrina? While she was miscarrying?"

"Sabrina is the past," Leon said coldly. "Zara is the future. Sabrina knows. I told her."

"You told her?" I stepped closer; my hands balled into fists. "She is alone in a hospital bed, barely holding on, and you’re sitting here planning a wedding?"

Leon’s eyes hardened into slits. "Don't lecture me, Cole. I don’t care if she’s dying. She’s a broken vessel. She’s lost every baby we’ve tried for. If she doesn't make it through this one... well, maybe it's better that way. Better for her to join them than to keep being a burden to me."

The sound of those words was the sound of seven years of friendship shattering. In that instant, Leon wasn't a friend or a husband, he was just a target of pure, righteous fury.

The sound of the punch was loud—a sickening crack of bone against bone.

I didn't even decide to do it. My body just moved. My fist connected with his jaw, sending him stumbling back into his bookshelf. Books and awards crashed to the floor. Zara screamed.

"You are a monster," I spat, standing over him, shaking with adrenaline. "You will regret this. One day, when this perfect little life of yours crumbles, you’ll realize you threw away the only person who actually loved you for you."

I turned and walked out, leaving him bleeding on his expensive carpet.

I got to my car and slammed the door, screaming a curse word at the windshield. I slammed my hands against the steering wheel, once, twice, trying to vent the fury boiling inside me.

How?

How could he choose Zara? I remembered college. I remembered how Zara used to laugh at Leon’s cheap suits. I remembered how Sabrina used to help him study, how she used to look at him like he hung the moon.

I had stepped back then. I had stepped back because Sabrina loved him, not me. I let him have her because I thought he would cherish her.

"I should have fought for her," I whispered to the empty car. "I never should have let her go."

My phone rang, cutting through the silence.

City General Hospital.

My heart stopped. I answered on the first ring. "Hello?"

"Mr. Cole?" The nurse’s voice was high, panicked. "It’s Mrs. Sabrina."

"Is she okay?"

"She’s crashing. Her pressure is bottoming out. We need blood, now. We can't wait for the blood bank transfer. Do you know her husband's number? We need a donor immediately."

"Forget the husband," I said, starting the engine. "He’s not coming."

"Sir, we need—"

"I’m O-Negative," I interrupted, reversing out of the parking spot, tires screeching. "I’m a universal donor. I’m five minutes away."

"Hurry," she said.

I threw the phone onto the passenger seat and floored the accelerator. The engine roared as I wove through traffic, running a red light, indifferent to the horns blaring around me.

Leon might have given up on her. He might have thrown her away like trash. But I wouldn’t.

Sabrina had spent seven years bleeding for a man who didn't care. Now, I was going to bleed for her.

"Hold on, Sabrina," I gritted out, gripping the wheel. "Just hold on."