Pressure like a drip!

New York hospital

General ward

Ava's eyes suddenly flashed open the moment she gained her consciousness, and she immediately realized that the surroundings around her were nowhere familiar.

Her eyes meandered across the white ceilings to the walls that were around in curiosity, and the smell of the place suddenly lingered around her senses, reminding her of the possible place that it could be.

She sat up immediately and parted the curtains that were around her to the right, and she shut them back immediately at the sight of the person lying in the next bed to her.

Ava's entirety began to panic instantly as she wondered why she was in the hospital, and she turned to her left arm in fear when she realized that something had been holding her back.

She tried to pull out the IV from her arm that was hanging by the side of the bed, and a lady in blue scrub who had sighted her quickly rushed over to her side to stop her.

"Ma'am, please calm down. I am here to help you," the nurse tried to soothe with her words, and she successfully took the IV line back from Ava and hung it to the right place. She also regulated the flow with the roller clamp and checked if the needle was still properly inserted into her arm.

"Why am I here? Is anything wrong with me?" Ava fretted as she looked around wondering if she was safe, and the nurse gently explained that she fainted the previous night and was brought in by the paramedics.

"Wh.. at… what..?" She mouthed incredulously and paused for a while, trying to recollect what happened the previous day after she received the most terrible news the previous day.

She closed her eyes and drew in bated breaths, slowly and shakily, before her thoughts came back together to form something meaningful in her head.

"When can I get discharged?" Ava asked the nurse again, thinking of how to get out of the hospital as fast as possible.

"Until the doctor says that you can. I will go and call upon him now to check up on you," the nurse explained to her and tried to help her lay on the bed, before turning to leave so that she could call the doctor.

That was when Ava remembered that she was in a hospital, and she had been treated by them after she was brought in. "Wait. Wait, please what about the bills? I don't have medical insurance that covers it," she chickened out, and momentarily grabbed the nurse by the hem of her blouse to hold her back. She became scared of being unable to pay her bills.

Shock had hit her the previous day when she wanted to use her personal card that had not been used for a while, and found out that the two credit cards had been frozen. There were no funds in either of her father's cards either.

For the years that she had been married to Ethan, she had been under the medical insurance of the Walton family at the luxurious hospital they used. Her own insurance accounts had stopped receiving funding ever since her father died, and the company collapsed.

It was so much for her to handle when she figured out that Celine was really ready to screw her up, leaving her with nothing to cater for herself from her father's left properties.

"Is there anyone that we can call? Your next of kin?" The nurse inquired further.

"I do not have any family," Ava refuted immediately, "My next of kin is my father and he is dead," She swallowed hard in almost inaudible words. Her father's death was a pain that could never leave her life.

"Calm down, Miss. Can you tell me if you have any family members apart from your father that we can call?" The nurse questioned again.

"No, I do not," Ava denied strongly with a stern look. There was no way she was telling them anything about herself, and whom she could call upon to help her. No one would.

"We have programs that can cover things like that, ma'am," the doctor that had treated her the previous day interrupted the conversation, as he moved closer to where she was to check if she was doing okay.

He had listened to half of the conversation between Ava and the nurse when he came into the ward, and figured out that the bills were minimal enough to be sorted out by some hospital charity programs.

He was a handsome man in his early thirties, with smooth caramel skin that glistened even without any shining. The glasses he had on his face rested comfortably at the bridge of his nose, and his deep green eyes didn't conceal under the thick lenses he had on.

"Mrs Ava Carson right?" He asked her gently, and collected the medical charts from the nurse. "How do you feel today?"

"I feel okay. I just want to leave this place as soon as possible," Ava cut in immediately.

That was when she suddenly remembered.

"Please, doctor. What is time? What is the time? I booked a travel spot at the waterways and I have to be there as soon as possible," Ava began to panic again as she tried to come down from the bed.

The only way out and hope that she had resorted to in her head, was to relocate to Cuba and reside with her distant cousin. Though she didn't know if she could still recognize the house they once visited when they were young, she believed it was preferable than having no one on her side, in the city where she had lived all her life.

When she researched the cost of booking a flight to Cuba, she found it to be quite expensive compared to the money she had with her. Consequently, she resorted to paying a broker all she had for boat transportation, with every penny she had left with her. It was crucial for her to depart on time to catch up, or else her plans to leave the city would be ruined.

When the nurse informed her of the time, she figured out that she still had some minutes left to make it to the seaport, and asked the doctor if she could leave immediately.

"Yes, ma'am. You can, as soon as I check that you are okay," the doctor assured her.

"I am good. Perfectly okay," she cut in impatiently.

She just had to leave her pains behind in New York and leave to another place, before they broke her beyond repair.

`~**~***~**~`

Ethan sat comfortably at the back of his luxurious car with his body fully rested on the leather seat, as his eyes fixed on one particular spot for a long time without uttering any word.

His assistant, Jesse, who was seated on the car seat beside the chauffeur that was driving, had been looking through the front mirror to look at his boss's face at intervals.

He couldn't figure out what seemed to be up with the billionaire or what had upset him, and it was killing him so much because of the stifling heat that permeated the car despite the air-conditioning.

The air was thick, laden with anxiety and nervous energy. However, it didn't last long.

Jesse broke the cold silence after he had watched the live news that was circulating the country at the moment on his phone. He could not help but show his boss.

"Sir," he hesitated a bit before he passed the tablet hoping that nothing would go wrong, "Sir, I think you need to see this."

Live on the screen was Celine and her daughter, Leslie before the reporters, as they announced the company shares were sold out and taken over by another company before the press. Another company had taken over Carson's company shares, and the news was everywhere.

Ethan's eyebrow furrowed waves into the middle of his forehead as he watched the news over and over again, wondering what was going on, and if Ava was involved in what was happening.

For some reason, he had been so disturbed after feeling her absence for two days in a row, and the fact that it seemed like she was not involved in anything concerning the sellout, like she wasn't part of the family again. It bothered him.

"Would you like to find out what happened, sir?" Jesse got ahead of himself before Ethan said anything, and he cast a cold gaze upon the assistant which made him shut his mouth immediately.

He couldn't afford to be distracted now.

The hours of the day passed by till evening, and it looked like everything was going normally till the moment Ethan was ready to leave in his car back home.

He had been busy with so much stockpiled work from the company, and had not been able to speak with Anna the entire day. He also had the most hectic day at work by overworking himself to get rid of the suffocated thoughts that grated on him, and within his chest was anxiety that churned like a tempestuous storm the entire day.

His father, who never really cared about anything or talked to him often, had called him a thousand times when he found out that he had divorced Ava. The old man had promised to make him sorry if he didn't bring her back to the Walton family, and cancel the divorce plans that he had in mind.

And slowly, the looming flake of impending doom that felt nearer by the minutes within Ethan all day, fanned fiercely the moment Jesse informed him of the information he forced himself to care about. The very one he couldn't ignore even if he tried hard.

"Sir. Mrs Ava was reported by the maids to have returned to the Carson's mansion, but left a few minutes later with every luggage that she came with. News has it that Mrs. Carson Celine had banished her out of the mansion never to come back again."

"Further investigations showed that Mrs. Ava met with a broker to arrange for a boat, and was also at the hospital the next day for light concussion due to a fall. She left the hospital afterward," Jesse reported the details of the information that he spent the entire day finding, and then paused until he got to the last part of the news.

"And?" Ethan asked impatiently. He didn't care about the process, because all that mattered, was if there were no loose ends.

"Details of the traveling record says that everyone that left in the boat she had booked, perished due to an unforeseen storm," he announced sadly.

"What?" Ethan's heart fell in shock.