Chapter 6 

#Aveline

The first thing that came back to me was the smell. It was a sharp, burning smell of hospital bleach that hurt the back of my nose. Right under it was a soft, heavy scent of expensive lavender oil. It was a clean smell, but it was so strong it made it hard to breathe.

I tried to open my eyes. My eyelids felt like they were made of heavy stone, glued shut by a deep sleep. When I finally forced them open, everything was a soft, blurry cream color. The lights were low and warm. There were no harsh, buzzing hospital tubes on the ceiling. I was looking up at a massive, beautiful ceiling with costly wood trim.

I tried to turn my neck to see where I was. A sudden, sharp bolt of pain shot straight down my spine. It felt like the bones in my neck had turned to solid rock. A tiny gasp left my dry lips. My throat felt like rough sand. Slowly, trying to fight the pain, I tried to lift my body to sit up. The moment I shifted my weight, a wave of sickness hit my stomach. My arms and legs felt as weak and empty as straw. I could not move a single inch. My body just refused to listen to me.

A steady, soft *beep... beep... beep* of a heart monitor filled the quiet room. I forced my eyes to focus. The room was huge. It looked like a luxury hotel suite, with dark marble counters and thick velvet curtains.

My brain was full of broken pieces of memory, spinning wildly. I tried to remember what happened. I remembered a cold mansion. A cruel husband who looked me in the eye and told me he did not care if I died. A little girl throwing her arms around a smiling mistress. A new baby boy. A heavy, dark storm. And then... the headlights. The sudden, terrifying glare of a car coming straight at me on the black ice. The loud, awful sound of metal crushing against my chest.

Fear hit me hard, twisting like a cold knife in my stomach. I did not know where I was. What if Rhett had found me? What if he had dragged my broken body back to that gilded cage just to watch me wither away on his own cold terms? By instinct, I closed my eyes tightly. I forced my breathing to stay slow and deep. I let my muscles go completely loose, pretending I was still trapped in the deep coma they thought I was in.

Suddenly, a loud click came from the heavy door handle. Footsteps, heavy and firm, started walking toward my bed.

"How are her vitals since we moved her?"

The voice was deep, strong, and unfamiliar. It had a cold power that made the air feel thin. It did not sound like Rhett at all.

"Surprisingly stable, Mr. Marceau," a second voice replied. It was lower and professional, clearly the doctor. "Her body went through a massive trauma from the multi-car collision. We ran some deep scans to check the internal damage from the impact, and that is when we found it. She has advanced, stage four cancer. It is highly aggressive. But what really stopped us was her blood profile. When we ran the emergency panels, her markers triggered a match with an old, high-priority missing person case in our system. We ordered an immediate DNA test to verify."

A long silence followed. I kept my eyes closed, my heart pounding wildly against my ribs. I prayed the monitors would not show how scared I was. *Cancer.* The doctor knew. And who was this case they were talking about?

"I want absolute certainty before my parents walk through that door," the deep voice said, getting even colder. "Is the validation complete?"

"The lab director just called me," the doctor said quickly, his voice full of respect. "The final DNA test is done. Go down to the central lab on the ground floor. Tell the main worker to hand you the papers directly. The results are officially ready."

"Good. Keep this floor locked down. Nobody gets in without my permission."

The heavy footsteps moved away, and the door slid shut with a soft sound. The doctor and the man were gone.

For a few minutes, the room was dead silent. I lay perfectly still, my mind spinning in circles. *DNA test? Missing person case?* What were they talking about? I was an orphan. I had no family. Who were these people?

Before I could think, the door clicked open again. This time, many sets of footsteps hurried into the room. They were not trying to be quiet.

"Alistair, please tell me it’s true," a woman’s voice sobbed, heavy with years of crying. "Tell me our baby is finally back."

"Calm down, Evelisse. Let's see what the papers say first," an older man's voice replied, but his voice shook badly.

"The lab did not make a mistake, Father," the first deep voice said. He was right next to my bed now. I heard the loud rustle of heavy paper being opened. "Look at the marks. The mother and father match perfectly. The blood test says it is exactly one hundred percent. It's a perfect match. She is our sister. She is a Marceau."

A sharp, collective gasp filled the room.

"My god... twenty-five years," the older man, Alistair, whispered, his voice breaking completely. "We searched the whole world, and fate brought her right back to us in the worst way. We never stopped looking. We never gave up hope. Has anyone checked on the other car?"

"Yes, Father," the oldest brother, Darius, answered. "The driver of the car she clashed against on the highway was Ronan. He is already in the west wing. His injuries are not serious at all just minor cuts and a small hit to the head. But when the hospital computer checked this unidentified girl's DNA against our missing baby records, everything stopped."

"Where has she been all these years?" Evelisse wept softly. I felt a heavy, warm hand gently hold mine over the blanket. Her thumb rubbed against my pale skin. "Who raised her? What kind of life did she live? Look at how thin she is... we know absolutely nothing about where she has been staying or what she has gone through. Our sweet girl was out there all alone."

Under the sheets, my whole body went completely numb. A wave of deep, freezing shock hit me, stopping the breath in my lungs.

I kept my eyes shut, terrified that even a tiny twitch would show them I was awake. *The Marceaus.* The global billionaires whose wealth made the Calloway food company look like a tiny street cart. I was not a poor orphan. I was the long-lost daughter of the most powerful family on earth. And the driver I had hit on the slippery ice was actually one of my own older brothers, Ronan.

A sudden, overwhelming warmth cracked through the icy shield around my heart. I wasn't an abandoned child. I wasn't unwanted. My real family had spent twenty-five years crying for me, searching for me, loving a memory. They didn't know about Rhett, they didn't know about my marriage, and they didn't know about the eight years of hell I had just run away from. They only knew I was their daughter.

I wanted to open my eyes. I wanted to scream and throw my arms around the mother who was weeping over my hand, but the pure shock choked the words inside my throat.

Suddenly, a violent, tearing pain ripped through the middle of my chest.

This was sharp, sudden, and terrifyingly explosive, like a bomb going off inside my body. The impact from the crash must have broken something vital deep inside. A sharp gasp of pure agony tore out of my mouth. My eyes flew wide open, my pupils growing huge with absolute terror. My back arched high off the bed as a horrific ripping feeling burst deep inside my stomach.

"Aveline!" Evelisse screamed, using the name she had held in her heart for decades, jumping back in horror as the heart monitor suddenly went completely crazy.

The steady *beep... beep... beep* turned into a wild, high-pitched scream. *Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep……*

"Doctor! Get in here right now!" Alistair roared, slamming his hands down to hold my shaking body as my arms and legs began to twist and thrash uncontrollably.

A thick, hot rush of dark blood poured from my lips, spilling down my chin and soaking the clean white sheets. I could not breathe. The air was completely cut off as my throat filled with warm fluid. I was choking on my own blood. My vision blurred into darkness, the terrified faces of the family around me spinning away into shadows.

The heavy door flew open, and a team of emergency doctors and nurses rushed into the room, shoving my brothers out of the way.

"She's flatlining!" the main doctor shouted, tearing the blanket off as the screens turned red. "The internal trauma from the crash is too severe! “She’s bleeding internally! There’s amajor arterial rupture! Her blood pressure is crashing. Get the crash cart.

"Save her!" Evelisse screamed, her voice cracking into a raw shriek as Darius dragged her out of the room. "You just brought her back to me! Don't let her die!"

The freezing metal pads of the machine slapped hard against my bare, bloody chest. The cold bit into my skin, but the pain inside was blinding. My heart gave one final, violent kick against my ribs.

Then, the monitor let out a single, long, flat sound that did not stop.