Chapter 4
The lights in the operating room snapped on.
Doctors and nurses rushed around me in a blur.
"Massive hemorrhage! Fetal heartbeat is fading! We need to operate now! Where's the family? Did the family arrive?"
The doctor's voice was tight with urgency.
I grabbed his sleeve, my mind frighteningly clear.
"Doctor… I'll sign it myself."
I gritted my teeth, every word sharp.
"Save us both. But if you can't… save me then. I'm not dying tonight. And if I do, no one will walk away clean. I don't need a husband to sign anything. I can take responsibility for myself."
For a moment, the doctor was stunned by the look in my eyes.
In that moment, I wasn't Mrs. Douglas anymore.
I was Charlie Vance.
The surgery lasted four hours.
I walked right up to death's door and dragged myself back.
The baby came early—a little boy, barely four pounds. He was rushed straight into an incubator.
When I woke up, I didn't cry. I didn't ask to see my child.
I pulled out the IV from my hand and told the nurse to call my lawyer.
At two in the morning, the rain finally stopped.
That was when Santino finally remembered to come home.
He reeked of alcohol—the celebratory kind. He had comforted Baylee until she fell asleep, played the hero, and then rewarded himself with drinks.
He pushed open the villa door, mumbling, "Charlie, you've made your point… Enough already… I even brought you supper. Don't be mad…"
Click.
The lights came on.
His foot landed in a pool of something thick.
He looked down.
A long, dark red trail stretched from the doorway to the stairs.
Stark, shocking, impossible to ignore.
"What is this… wine?"
He frowned, still drunk, still clueless.
Then he saw it. The shredded black lace lingerie sitting on the coffee table.
And beside it were the divorce papers.
My name was already signed.
Bold. Sharp. Final.
Next to the papers was another dried smear of dark red.
My blood.
Half his drunken fog evaporated instantly.
A cold, unfamiliar panic tore through him.
"Charlie?"
"Baby?"
No response.
The villa echoed with nothing but his own voice.
His hands shook as he fumbled for his phone.
"The number you dialed is no longer in service…"
Disconnected.
I had canceled the line.
That was when panic finally hit him—real, bone-deep panic.
He called every hospital he could think of, half-crazed.
"Was a pregnant woman named Charlie Douglas admitted? Anyone? Please, anyone?"
He finally reached the right one.
The night-shift nurse replied, voice flat and cold, "Charlie Douglas? Oh, the one who almost bled out. She was discharged. Location unknown. She nearly died, mother and baby both. Are you her husband? Where were you?"
Clatter.
His phone slipped out of his hand and hit the floor.
Santino collapsed beside the dried blood on the tiles, clutching the torn scrap of black lace that still carried a faint trace of my blood.
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