Chapter 4

"I'm her father."

My parents came through the doors out of breath.

My mother saw me lying there without a drop of color in me, in a pool of my own blood with lines running into both arms, and her legs went out from under her. She dropped to the floor and couldn't stop crying.

My father's eyes were red and his hands were shaking so badly he could barely hold the pen, but he pressed it down hard and signed the critical-condition notice.

I'd messaged them on the way in, right after my water broke.

Rush hour had locked their car solid, so they'd abandoned it in the middle of the road and run the last mile and a half to Fairgrove Women's Medical Center on foot.

"Elena, don't be scared. Mom and Dad are here. Don't be scared."

Listening to my mother sob like her heart was coming apart, I finally let myself go under.

The surgery was brutal. I went into shock twice from blood loss, and Dr. Prescott sent word out to my family that I might not make it, twice.

But after all of it, I came back, and I delivered a healthy daughter.

I spent three full days in intensive care before I was out of danger.

In those three days, Damian never showed up once.

A nurse doing rounds told me that Sienna had complained that same night that the hospital was too rundown and the smell of disinfectant was everywhere and she couldn't rest, so Damian had moved her that night to a high-end private recovery facility one county over.

He left without asking a single person whether the wife in the operating room was alive or dead.

The day I was discharged, I signed the divorce papers my attorney handed me.

"Dad, Mom, take me out of here." I looked down at my sleeping daughter and my voice came out ruined but steady. "Somewhere with a gate. Don't tell anyone where we are."

My parents nodded, both of them red-eyed.

They knew I had loved Damian for five straight years, and they knew exactly how much I had swallowed to do it.

Seeing me finally awake to it broke their hearts, but underneath that they were relieved.

That afternoon I was quietly moved into Everpine, the most secure postpartum residence in the state.

Without an access code from the front desk, nobody got past the door.

I cut every personal line I had to the outside world and kept one work phone.

Then I called Martin Hale, our family CFO.

"Martin, pull every dollar we have in Keats Supply and Logistics. Then get on the phone with every supplier in the industry we do business with and cut off his inventory and his contacts. I want him in liquidation inside three days."

Back at Fairgrove Women's Medical Center, Damian had finally gotten Sienna settled, and he came strolling into the maternity corridor carrying a half-finished container of expensive soup she hadn't wanted.

"Elena, Sienna's been discharged. You can move into the private suite now."

His voice cut off when he saw the empty hallway.

Where the overflow bed had been there was nothing at all, only a wide dark red stain on the floor that nobody had finished scrubbing out.

Damian stood there, and something ugly started climbing up through his chest.

He grabbed a nurse walking past. "Excuse me. The patient who was in this bed. Where did Elena go?"

The nurse turned, recognized him, and didn't bother hiding what came into her face.

"You're her husband? And you've got the nerve to come ask?"

Denise heard it and came over, pointing at him. "Your wife hemorrhaged out here. Placental abruption. She was minutes from dying on that floor, and where were you?

"We called you dozens of times to come sign the consent, and you had your phone switched off. If her parents hadn't made it here in time, you'd be identifying two bodies right now.

"Do you have any idea she went into shock twice on that table? You aren't fit to be anybody's husband, and you sure as hell aren't fit to be a father."

Damian looked like he'd been hit by lightning. The container slipped out of his hand and burst on the floor.

"Hemorrhage? Shock? That's not possible. She was just having a baby, how could she..." His face went white and his hand went to his pocket.

The phone was off.

But he knew for a fact he had never turned it off.

Sienna, who had been dawdling along behind him, caught the whole scene and showed no guilt whatsoever. She stepped up and hooked her arm through his.

She glanced at the blood on the floor, rolled her eyes, and arranged her face into something wounded.

"Damian, don't listen to them. Elena's family has money and she's always been dramatic. She probably staged some of that to scare you. She's just jealous that you're good to me.

"And if she's going to make a scene like this, use it. Let her sit with it a while. Go home when she's come to her senses. I don't want anything from you. I only want to be with you."

Damian listened to that soft, coaxing voice, then looked back down at the blood on the floor, and his head filled with noise.

Right then the phone he'd just powered back on started going off.

It was his assistant at the company, crying so hard the words came out in pieces.

"Mr. Keats! It's over! The Westbrooks pulled the funding, every supplier is calling in their invoices at once, the credit line's gone. We're finished."