Who Survives After My Delivery In The Novel?

At nine months pregnant, I was in the final stretch of my term, and my body heavy with a baby due any day. But my husband, Vito Falcone, underboss of the family, had locked me away. He held me in a sterile underground medical room and injected me with a labor suppressant. As I screamed in agony, he coldly told me to endure it. Because his brother's widow, Scarlett, was expected to go into labor at the exact same time. A blood oath he'd made with his late brother declared that the firstborn son would inherit the family's lucrative West Coast territory. "That inheritance belongs to Scarlett's child," he said. "With Daemon gone, she is utterly alone and destitute. You have my love, Alessia. All of it. I just need her to deliver safely. Then it's your turn." The drug was a constant, agonizing torment. I begged him to take me to a hospital. He grabbed me by the throat, forcing me to meet his icy gaze. "Stop the act! I know you're fine. You’re just trying to steal the inheritance." "To get ahead of Scarlett, you'll stop at nothing." My face was ashen. My body convulsed as I managed a desperate whisper. "The baby's coming. I don't care about the inheritance. I just love you, and I want our child to be born safely!" He sneered. "If you were really that innocent, if you had an ounce of love for me, you wouldn't have forced Scarlett to sign that prenup, waiving her child's inheritance rights." "Don't worry, I'll be back for you after she's given birth. you're carrying my own flesh and blood, after all." He kept a vigil outside Scarlett's delivery room all night. It was only after seeing the newborn in her arms that he remembered me. He finally sent his second in command, Marco, to release me. But when Marco finally called, his voice was shaking. "Boss... the missus and the baby... they're gone." In that moment, Vito Falcone shattered.

On the day my husband's dying first love gave birth, his father, the Don of the Lupo family, posted ten armed men outside my door. They were on high alert, terrified I might storm the delivery room and disrupt the birth of the first heir to the Lupo family. But I never even touched the door, not even when the newborn's cries echoed down the hall. Luca's mother, the family's Donna, let out a long sigh of relief, her hand tightly gripping the woman's on the hospital bed. "Bianca, we're here. That barren woman, Stella, won't lay a finger on you or my grandson." Luca leaned over, gently wiping the cold sweat from Bianca's brow, his eyes filled with tenderness. "Don't worry, Father's had his men lock down the entire private hospital. If she dares to cause a scene, I'll have her struck from the family records myself." Only after confirming I wouldn't show up to make trouble did he finally relax. He didn't understand. In his eyes, he was just honoring a debt, giving a dying woman a child to carry on her name, helping his first love fulfill her final wish. Why couldn't I just be graceful about it? Why couldn't I see the bigger picture? A satisfied smile touched Luca's lips as he gazed at the swaddled infant. He was even thinking that if I would just swallow my pride, admit I was wrong, and show Bianca a little kindness, he would forgive my previous coldness completely. He'd make it up to me, even offering me the hollow title of the child's mother, allowing me to keep my position as the Underboss's wife. But what he didn't know was that I had already signed the divorce papers my lawyer had drawn up. In a week, I would cut all ties with the Lupo family, take the twins growing inside me and walk away. We would never see each other again, not in this life or the next.

The moment I discover I'm pregnant, Courtney Smith, the leukemia patient I saved three years ago, turns up on my doorstep once again. She claims that her leukemia has relapsed again, so she wants me to abort my baby in order to save her life again. But I'm pregnant with my deceased police husband's baby. So, I tell her that I can only donate my bone marrow to her once I've given birth to my baby. After hearing my answer, not only do Courtney and her family not feel any gratitude toward me, but they also berate me for not helping them out till the end. "You can still have another baby once you lose this one! But if your pregnancy affects my illness in any way, will you be able to take responsibility over this?" Then, the Smiths abduct me to a shady hospital, where they forcibly put me through an abortion and remove my bone marrow. While their operation is a success, my baby and I end up dying on the surgical table. As they gaze at our corpses, the Smiths' faces are plastered with icy expressions. "Don't blame us for what we did. If you were the one with leukemia, we'd still make Court donate her bone marrow to you. One's life is determined by fate. If you can't survive, that just means you're fated to die." When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the timeframe three days before Courtney finds out about her leukemia relapse.

In the delivery room, my wife, Ashley Chase, is now fully dilated, but she refuses to go through with the delivery. She insists that I have to agree to accept her betrayal first. "Henry Madden, I want you to swear that you'll treat this baby as if it were your own. Or else, I refuse to give birth today. The baby and I will both die in this delivery room!" The medical staff joins in, trying to convince me that life matters more than anything else—that all Ashley has done is make a mistake, and I should just live with it. Ashley's mother even slaps me when she sees that I haven't agreed yet. "You're just a loser who married into our family! You should feel honored that we're letting you be the father in name. Don't be such an ingrate!" Sneering, I grab the delivery consent form and write the words "do not agree". "Since Ashley is so keen to end both her own life and the life of her love child, I'll let her have her way."

On my very first night working the overnight shift at the new hospital I've been transferred to, I run into my wife, Willow Jensen, who claimed she needed to be away on a year-long business trip. Now, she's lying on a gurney outside the delivery room, heavily pregnant, with blood pouring from beneath her. The man kneeling beside her grabs my hand tightly, his desperate pleas ringing in my ears. "Doctor, please! You have to save her!"

My husband forced me into labor the same day his widowed sister-in-law went into labor. I was only seven months pregnant when he dragged me to the hospital and demanded that the doctors induce me. Eugene Cobb locked me inside the delivery room, his expression tense and urgent. "The baby Fiona's carrying has a rare disease. The doctors say he'll die as soon as he's born. They need umbilical cord blood and special stem cells during delivery to save him! My brother's already gone. It's my responsibility to take care of her and her child." A four-inch-long induction needle pierced into my body. Violent contractions crashed through me, cold sweat soaking my back. I said weakly, "Fiona's pregnancy has been perfectly healthy. How could the baby suddenly have a rare disease? And my pregnancy is high-risk. The doctor said I need to carry to term. If you force an early birth, you'll kill both our baby and me!" Eugene frowned slightly and pinned me firmly to the hospital bed. "The doctor already explained everything. The baby just needs to be born two months early. Nothing will happen." As Fiona Smith's screams rang out from the delivery room next door, something seemed to occur to him. "You're not trying to get rid of Fiona because I've been taking care of her all the time, are you? I told you a long time ago I'm only helping her because she's my sister-in-law. How can you be so vicious?" I stared at the blood spreading beneath me and begged through tears. As long as he spared the child, I was willing to divorce him and give them my place. Eugene's eyes filled with impatience. "What are you talking about? I'm the baby's father. Why would I harm my own child?" My umbilical cord blood and stem cells were finally used on Fiona's baby. Both mother and child were declared safe. Only then did Eugene finally remember us. But when he arrived at the hospital room, the only thing waiting for him was an empty bed.