All Chapters of CLAIMED BY THE DEVIL DON.: Chapter 61 - Chapter 67

The corridor outside the medical bay was a blinding contrast to the clinical white room—a long, shadowed passage, dimly lit by a single, failing emergency light that cast the peeling plaster walls in sickly, shifting hues of red and gray. I crawled, dragging my heavy body across the marble floor, the cold seeping through my thin gown, a constant, brutal reminder of my vulnerability.The pain of the contractions was immense now, a crushing, tightening vice that forced small, involuntary moans from my throat. But the physical agony was secondary to the fear. I was moving away from the safe, sterile place toward the sounds of war, trusting that the growing noise meant my husband was closer than the enemy.I have to get to the main hall. I have to be visible. If I hide, Damon's men will retrieve me and force the doctor’s hand. I have to be the focus of the battle, not the prize.I rounded a corner, my breath coming in ragged gasps, when the figure emerged from the stairwell ahead, moving

The tunnel was a blinding chaos of tactical light and suffocating, sulfurous smoke. We were deep inside the conduit now, running a gauntlet of desperate, terrified men who had realized too late that their employer had abandoned them. The fight was brutal, confined, and utterly devoid of mercy.I moved at the front, my movements less those of a man and more those of an automated, perfectly calibrated weapon. The coordinates of the villa’s primary infirmary—the junction where Isabella was held—were burned into my prefrontal cortex: 48.67N, 24.33E, Sub-Level 3. Everything else was noise, interference, and obstacle.A mercenary, his face a terrified blur in the strobing light of my rifle-mounted beam, emerged from a lateral passage, screaming something in Spanish. I didn't register the words, only the threat.Threat neutralized.The sound of the shot was muffled, absorbed by the stone walls, but the man’s collapse was sickeningly loud.“Forward!” I barked into the comms, my voice raw, the

The granite planter was cold, rough, and unforgiving against my back. I was trapped, pinned down less by the smoke Marco had created and more by the immense, crushing reality of the labor seizing my body. The dark stain on the marble floor confirmed the rupture, and the agony that followed was no longer a wave, but a constant, grinding pressure that stole all rational thought.I bit down on the fabric of my gown, muffling the animal sounds of my pain, forcing myself to focus on the sound of the fight just beyond the gray smoke curtain. I could hear Marco—the guard who chose decency over profit—shouting in Spanish, followed by the sickening sounds of struggle and impact. He was fighting three, maybe four men. He was buying me seconds with his life. He is dying for me. A stranger. A man who needed to believe in one final, pure act of defiance before his contract ended. I told him I would make it to the noise, and now I am here, bleeding, useless, listening to his noble sacrifice become