Chapter 1 - The Red Line|
Rain hammered Saint Mercy’s ambulance bay hard enough to turn the pavement silver.
Dominic Vescari arrived twelve minutes after his estranged wife.
And the woman beside him was his mistress.
Celeste Arden stepped from the black SUV in a cream coat and matching heels, one hand looped possessively through Dominic’s arm as if they were arriving for dinner instead of walking into a trauma center.
Dominic’s investigator had called minutes earlier.
"Mara’s car went over the barrier near Halston Bridge. She’s alive. Barely."
That was all.
Now Dominic stood inside Trauma Room Four staring at the woman he had not been permitted to touch for eight months. Mara’s face was gray beneath blood and rainwater. Glass glittered in her dark hair. Her coat had been cut open, and one sneaker was missing.
A trauma surgeon pressed gauze beneath her ribs while another shouted numbers Dominic could not understand.
Celeste touched his sleeve. "We should leave. This isn't our problem, Dominic. She walked out on you."
Mara’s eyes opened barely. But she heard.
Dominic watched recognition move through them—not relief, not love, but resignation.
"Let the doctors handle her," Celeste whispered.
A nurse pulled Mara’s torn sweater away from her abdomen, stopped suddenly, and screamed, "Get OB down here now!"
Dominic’s gaze dropped. The swelling beneath Mara’s clothes wasn't from the crash.
An ultrasound machine rolled closer. Probe. Gel. Static. Then a rapid flutter filled the room.
"Thirty-two weeks," the obstetrician said. "Fetal cardiac activity still present."
Dominic’s hand slipped from Celeste’s. All color drained from his face as he did the arithmetic. Eight months.
"That baby..." His voice failed.
Mara closed her eyes as the nurse shoved him backward. "Sir, get out!"
"I’m her husband!"
"You’re obstructing care!"
No one in Bell Haven spoke to Dominic Vescari that way. But Saint Mercy’s did not care about his mafia kingdom. Here, power meant keeping pressure on a ruptured spleen.
Suddenly, Mara’s monitor flatlined into a high, merciless tone.
"Pressure's dropping! OR now!"
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Mara’s eyes found Dominic one final time. She looked frightened—not of death, but of him.
"That baby is mine!" Dominic roared as the doors burst open and she disappeared beneath white lights.
