Chapter 3 - THE EMERGENCY DELIVERYThe operating-room doors closed in Marcus’s face.
A nurse directed him toward the waiting area.
He ignored her until Adrian appeared behind the glass.
“We have to deliver the baby now.”
Khloe was only thirty-one weeks pregnant.
The child’s lungs were not fully developed.
Her blood pressure was falling.
The impact against the marble table had caused a partial placental abruption.
Marcus gripped the back of a chair.
“Will they survive?”
Adrian did not offer comfort he could not guarantee.
“We are going to fight for both of them.”
Marcus signed the emergency consent forms with a shaking hand.
Then he sat beneath the fluorescent lights and realized he had no right to call himself Khloe’s husband.
For months, she had warned him about Isabella.
She had told him the lingering touches were not innocent.
She had shown him messages that disappeared from his phone.
She had asked why confidential conversations from their home kept reaching the gossip pages.
Marcus had dismissed her fears.
He had accused her of stress.
He had even suggested that pregnancy hormones were affecting her judgment.
Now she was fighting for her life because he had refused to see what was directly in front of him.
Detective Brooks entered the waiting area.
“We found something else.”
Marcus did not look up.
“Unless it helps my wife, I do not care.”
“It concerns your wife.”
Brooks placed the ultrasound image beside him.
Marcus read the words on the bottom.
His stomach tightened.
“What first attempt?”
“Three months ago, Mrs. Thorne was treated for unexplained abdominal cramping.”
Marcus remembered.
Khloe had collapsed during a private dinner.
Her doctor had suspected food poisoning.
Brooks continued.
“The toxicology results were changed after they were entered into the hospital system.”
“Changed by whom?”
“We traced the access credentials to a nurse named Melissa Grant.”
Adrian’s assistant.
A woman Khloe trusted.
Marcus stood.
“Where is she?”
“Missing.”
The operating-room light remained red.
An hour passed.
Then another.
At 2:18 in the morning, Adrian finally walked through the doors.
His surgical mask hung around his neck.
Marcus searched his face.
“Tell me.”
“The baby is alive.”
Marcus’s knees nearly failed.
“A girl.”
Adrian’s voice softened.
“She weighs three pounds and four ounces.”
“And Khloe?”
Adrian hesitated.
“She lost a great deal of blood.”
“She is stable for now, but she has not regained consciousness.”
Marcus closed his eyes.
Adrian moved closer.
“When she wakes up, she may remember everything.”
“She should.”
Marcus looked through the glass toward the neonatal intensive care unit.
“What did Isabella try three months ago?”
Before Adrian could answer, Detective Brooks received a call.
Her expression sharpened.
“They found Nurse Grant.”
Marcus waited.
May you like
Brooks lowered the phone.
“She is dead.”
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