Chapter 1 - THE CAMERA NEVER BLINKEDMarcus moved toward Khloe, but Elaine Parker stepped in front of him.
“Do not touch her.”
Her voice was sharper than he had ever heard it.
“She may have a spinal injury.”
Khloe remained curled around her stomach.
Each breath came in broken fragments.
Marcus dropped to his knees beside her.
“Khloe, look at me.”
She opened her eyes.
“The baby.”
Two words shattered whatever remained of his composure.
Marcus reached for his phone, but the door opened again.
A tall man in dark-blue scrubs entered with three nurses and a medical team behind him.
Dr. Adrian Hayes was the hospital’s chief of maternal-fetal medicine.
He was also Khloe’s uncle.
Adrian saw his niece on the floor and stopped.
For one terrible second, he was not a doctor.
He was the man who had promised Khloe’s late mother that he would always protect her.
Then his training took control.
“Backboard.”
“Fetal monitor.”
“Clear the room.”
Isabella pressed a trembling hand to her chest.
“Doctor, she attacked me first.”
Adrian did not look at her.
“Security will determine what happened.”
Marcus lifted his head.
“What security?”
Elaine pointed toward the ceiling.
A small black camera rested above the suite entrance.
Isabella’s face changed.
Only for a second.
But Marcus saw it.
A security officer entered carrying a tablet.
“We have the recording.”
Isabella immediately began crying harder.
“There must be another angle.”
The officer touched the screen.
The suite television flickered to life.
Khloe appeared on the recording, standing near the marble table.
Isabella approached her.
There was no missing audio.
No obstructed view.
No room for interpretation.
“You were supposed to know your place,” Isabella’s recorded voice said.
Marcus watched the first shove.
Then the second.
Then the kick.
His face went completely still.
Isabella stepped backward.
“That is not what it looks like.”
No one answered her.
The footage showed Khloe never raising a hand.
It showed Isabella adjusting her dress before screaming for help.
It showed her practicing a frightened expression in the reflection of a glass cabinet before Marcus opened the door.
Elaine covered her mouth.
One of the nurses whispered a curse.
Marcus slowly stood.
Isabella looked at him desperately.
“Marcus, please.”
He stared at the woman he had defended for months.
Then Adrian’s voice cut through the room.
“The fetal heartbeat is dropping.”
Khloe was rushed onto a stretcher.
Marcus tried to follow.
Adrian stopped him at the door.
“You can come when I know whether my niece and her child are going to survive.”
As the medical team disappeared down the corridor, two security officers approached Isabella.
She looked toward Marcus one final time.
He did not move to save her.
Then the elevator doors opened.
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Two police detectives stepped out.
And one of them was holding a red leather folder with Marcus Thorne’s name written across the front.
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