Chapter 2

Twelve minutes.

I pressed my back against the wall, one hand clamped over the bleeding IV wound, the other cradling my belly.

My daughter kicked hard. Once. Twice. Like she was fighting too.

Hold on, baby. Just hold on.

Marcus stood between me and the door, his composure reassembling itself like armor.

"You called Dominic Caine." He said the name like poison. "Of all the stupid, emotional—"

"Move away from the door, Marcus."

"Or what?" He stepped closer. "You'll waddle past me? You're thirty-two weeks pregnant, Ava. You can barely stand."

He was right. My legs were shaking. Whatever Monroe had started pumping into me was still in my system — something to soften my cervix, to accelerate delivery. I could feel the cramping starting, low and rhythmic.

I was running out of time.

"Dr. Monroe," Marcus said, without looking away from me, "prepare a sedative. Intramuscular. She won't cooperate with an IV."

Monroe hesitated. For the first time, I saw doubt in her eyes.

"Marcus, if she's already experiencing contractions from the Misoprostol, adding sedation could—"

"Did I ask for your medical opinion or your obedience?"

Monroe flinched. Then she opened a cabinet and began preparing a syringe.

The cramping intensified. I bit down on my lip until I tasted blood.

"You know what Serena told me when we selected you?" Marcus said, conversational, cruel. "She said, 'Find someone plain enough to not threaten me, but healthy enough to carry well.' You were candidate number six. The first five had better bone structure, but your bloodwork was exceptional."

Each word was a knife. He wielded them with surgical precision.

"Eighteen months ago, I thought I was marrying you," I said, my voice raw.

"You were." He shrugged. "Marriage was the cleanest legal framework. A surrogacy contract with a stranger invites scrutiny. A wife? A wife who tragically suffers postpartum psychosis and voluntarily relinquishes custody?" He smiled. "That's just a sad story."

Postpartum psychosis.

That was their endgame. Deliver the baby. Drug me. Institutionalize me. Take my daughter.

The door behind Marcus burst open.

Not Dominic. Not yet.

A nurse — young, wide-eyed, her name tag reading JENNY — stood there with a tray of postoperative supplies she clearly didn't need to deliver.

She looked at me. At my bleeding arm. At the restraints on the gurney. At Marcus blocking the door.

"Mrs. Blackwell? Are you... is everything—"

"She's fine," Marcus snapped. "Get out."

Jenny's eyes met mine.

Help me, I mouthed.

Something shifted in her face. Resolution. Recklessness.

"Actually, sir, I need to check her vitals. Hospital protocol after any IV disruption. If you could step outside—"

"I said get out."

Jenny didn't move. Her hand went to the emergency call button on her hip.

Marcus saw it.

The room held its breath.

Then — voices in the corridor. Loud. Authoritative. The unmistakable sound of expensive shoes moving fast on linoleum.

"Where is she?"

Dominic Caine's voice cut through the walls like a blade.

Marcus went pale.

The door swung open again, and Dominic filled the frame — six-foot-three, black overcoat, jaw set like granite.

Behind him: two men in suits who were clearly not lawyers, and one woman who clearly was.

Dominic's eyes swept the room in two seconds flat. The gurney with restraints. The prepared syringe in Monroe's trembling hand. Me, bleeding, contracting, backed against a wall.

His gaze locked on Marcus.

I had seen Dominic Caine in boardrooms, at galas, on magazine covers. I had never seen him look like this.

He looked like he wanted to commit murder and had already calculated the legal consequences.

"Twelve minutes," he said to me, his voice impossibly gentle compared to his expression. "I'm sorry it wasn't faster."

Then he turned to his lawyer.

"Document everything. Photograph the restraints, the IV, the syringe. Get the hospital's security footage before it disappears."

"You have no authority here, Caine," Marcus snarled.

Dominic didn't even look at him.

"Ava," he said, extending his hand. "Can you walk?"

I pushed off the wall. My legs buckled immediately.

He caught me — one arm around my back, the other beneath my knees — and lifted me as if I weighed nothing.

Another contraction hit. I gasped, gripping his coat.

"She's contracting," he said sharply to someone behind him. "Get Dr. Patel on the line. Now. Have the car ready."

As he carried me past Marcus, my husband grabbed Dominic's arm.

"Put my wife down, Caine. That baby is my property."

Dominic stopped.

He looked down at Marcus's hand on his arm, then up at Marcus's face.

"Touch me again," Dominic said, his voice barely above a whisper, "and I will end you in ways your lawyers can't fix."

Marcus released him.

Dominic carried me out of that room, down the corridor, past stunned nurses and gaping orderlies, into the cold night air where a black armored SUV waited with its engine running.

He set me gently in the back seat. A woman — Dr. Patel, I'd learn later — was already inside with a medical kit.

"You're safe now," Dominic said, buckling in beside me.

I looked at him through tears I couldn't stop.

"Why?" I whispered. "Why would you help me?"

He held my gaze for a long moment.

"Because two years ago, at the Whitfield Gala, you stopped a waiter from being fired for spilling champagne on Serena Cole's dress. You took the blame yourself. You didn't know anyone was watching."

He paused.

"I was watching."

The SUV pulled away from St. Regent's Medical, and the life I'd known — the lie I'd lived — disappeared in the rearview mirror.

My daughter kicked again.

I held my belly with both hands and made her a promise.

No one will ever use us again.