Chapter 2

His words went into me like a knife.

He was willing to use the baby as leverage. For her.

Maya's face was white against his shoulder.

"Mason, I'm fine… If Lara doesn't want to give it up, please don't make her.

"I'm brave. I'm not afraid to die."

His brow drew down hard.

The blood on me was making me cold. I forced what voice I had left.

"Mason. I am not lying to you. There is so much blood."

Maya cut her eyes to one of the men behind him.

The crew closed in around me.

There was something accusing in the way they looked at me.

One of them, a man Maya had always been close with, spoke first, his patience already gone.

"Mrs. Sterling. You are out of line. Maya is dying. Are you really going to fight her for the rig?

"And if it were that bad, you'd be unconscious by now. Where are you finding the breath to argue?"

The rest of the squad piled in.

"There's another rig coming. You really need to take this one off a dying woman."

"This isn't about jealousy, is it. You picking now to put on a show."

I started to shake. The tears came down whether I wanted them or not.

"Mason. I am not putting on a show.

"I am a mother. I would not use my own baby for sympathy. You know me."

He turned his head toward me. His eyes lingered on the blood for three seconds.

"Lara, you disappoint me."

I looked at him without saying anything, and my mind went back five years.

That was the year Maya had moved overseas with a boyfriend, and Mason had been at the bar every night drinking himself stupid.

I had taken him home. Again and again. I had sat with him through hangovers. I had let my warmth do the work of healing what she had cracked in him.

The way he looked at me had softened.

On my birthday, he had taken my hand and said, "Lara. Be my girlfriend. I know you have always been good to me. Let me take care of you for the rest of your life."

The way he had looked at me had not been an act. I had been sure of that.

I had stayed. Through the brutal training, through every bad call, through every wound he came home with.

For years, he had been a soft, attentive husband. I had thought we were going to be happy forever.

Then Maya had come back.

Within days, the way he had cared for me transferred to her, point for point.

He had said all his life that Maya was a sister to him. But what they did with each other was always a step over the line.

It took me a long time to understand. I had been the substitute. I had been the placeholder he held when he was angry at her.

Maya came back, and I was nothing.

The lead medic's voice broke me out of it.

"The fetus is in serious distress. Any further delay and we lose them both."

Mason's mouth opened. Before he could speak one of his men jumped in.

"Maya is the squad's little princess. Anything happens to her on our watch, we are not letting it slide. The next rig is coming up the road right now. Let Maya go in this one. We'll get Mrs. Sterling out."

Mason heard them and his face composed itself again.

"All right, Lara. Stop it. I'll send Maya now and come back for you."

He carried her into the rig. The lead medic tried to argue. Two of Mason's men shoved the medic into the rig with her.

The doors slammed. The siren came up. The rig was gone.

Mason did not look back at me.

The pain in my belly came in waves now. Something was peeling off the inside of me.

There was a hot flood between my legs. I screamed.

The world went black.