Chapter 10
Blake POV
I was reaching for the envelope on the desk when the front door didn't just open-it exploded inward.
Shards of timber sprayed across the hallway floor.
I spun around, my hand instinctively flying to the Glock holstered at my waist.
It was Mark.
My Capo. My best friend since we were kids running numbers on the block.
But I had never seen him look like this.
His face was crimson, the veins in his neck corded and pulsing against his skin. He was heaving, breathing in ragged gasps as if he had sprinted up all thirty flights of stairs.
"You absolute disgrace," he spat.
I lowered my hand, confusion warring with adrenaline. "Mark? What the hell-"
"Don't speak," he roared, kicking aside a piece of the broken door frame. "You don't get to speak."
"I am your Underboss," I warned, my voice dropping an octave into a command. "Watch your tone."
"You're a rabid dog," Mark said, stalking toward me until he was in my personal space. He poked a finger into my chest. Hard. "And the Don is going to put you down."
"What are you talking about?"
"Caroline," he said.
My stomach dropped as if the floor had vanished.
"Where is she?"
"She's gone," Mark said, his voice trembling. "Bridget picked her up from the hospital an hour ago."
"Hospital?" I frowned, the pieces refusing to fit. "Why was she at the hospital? Her leg?"
Mark laughed. It was a dark, ugly sound that held no humor.
"You don't know," he said, shaking his head in disbelief. "Of course you don't know. You were too busy holding Ariana's hand because she had a fucking hangnail."
"Ariana was in shock," I defended automatically, though the excuse sounded weak even to my own ears.
"Caroline was hit by a semi-truck," Mark screamed.
The world stopped.
The air was sucked out of the room.
"What?"
"After you left her. At the cemetery. In the storm." Mark's eyes were swimming with unshed tears. "She walked to the highway. A truck skidded. She couldn't move fast enough."
I staggered back, my legs striking the edge of the desk chair.
"Is she..." I couldn't say it. I couldn't give the word life.
"She's alive," Mark said. "Barely."
Relief washed over me, so potent it made me dizzy. "Okay. She's alive. I can fix this. I'll go to her. I'll-"
"You can't fix this," Mark interrupted, his voice dropping to a whisper that was infinitely louder than his scream. "Because of the blood."
"The blood?"
"They called you," Mark said. "The ER. They needed the O-negative override codes. They paged Dr. Santos."
I froze.
The page.
The memory crashed into me.
Trauma Room 1. Critical. Requesting reserve units.
I was with Ariana. She was hyperventilating, tears streaming down her face because she had nicked her finger on a shard of a broken wine glass. She was terrified of blood.
I had told them to hold the reserve. Just in case she went into shock. Just in case she needed it.
"I didn't know it was her," I whispered, horror clawing at my throat. "They didn't say the name."
"You didn't ask," Mark countered. "You chose the mistress over the unknown patient. And the patient was your wife."
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a crumpled medical report. He slammed it onto the desk next to the black book.
"Read it."
I looked down, my vision blurring.
Patient: Caroline Santos.
Diagnosis: Blunt force trauma. Grade 3 Hemorrhage.
Procedure: Emergency laparotomy.
Outcome: Stabilized.
My eyes drifted to the bottom of the page, dreading what lay there.
Notes: Due to delayed transfusion, patient suffered hypovolemic shock resulting in spontaneous abortion. Fetus demise at 8 weeks.
The room spun violently.
I grabbed the desk to keep from falling, my knuckles turning white.
"Fetus," I choked out.
"A son," Mark said mercilessly. "You had a son, Blake. And you killed him to save a panic attack."
I looked at the black book.
I opened it, my fingers trembling.
The handwriting was shaky at the end.
Minus five points.
Killed our child for her reserve.
Score: -5.
I looked up at Mark, broken.
"She's gone," he said, his voice void of sympathy. "She signed the papers. She declared war, Blake. And you? You're the enemy."
I fell into the chair, all strength leaving my body.
I covered my face with my hands.
And then, I screamed.
Chapter 11
Blake POV
The door hung off its hinges where Mark had kicked it in.
The silence that followed his departure was heavier than the noise had ever been. It pressed against my eardrums. It suffocated the air in the room until I could barely draw a breath.
My hand trembled as I reached for the medical report Mark had slammed onto the mahogany desk.
I didn't want to touch it.
Touching it made it real.
My fingers brushed the crinkled paper. It felt cold, like a cadaver.
I pulled it closer.
Patient: Caroline Santos.
Admitted: 19:42.
Status: Critical.
My eyes scanned the technical jargon-systolic pressure crashing, hematocrit levels non-existent. I was a surgeon. I knew what those numbers meant. They meant she had exsanguinated.
They meant she was dying while I was holding Ariana's hand, listening to her whine about the color palette of a waiting room.
My gaze landed on the bottom of the page.
Notes: Due to delayed transfusion of O-negative units, patient suffered severe hypovolemic shock.
I stopped breathing.
I read the next line.
Resulting in spontaneous abortion. Fetal demise at 8 weeks.
The world tilted on its axis.
The floor seemed to rush up to meet me.
A son.
Mark said it was a son.
I had a son.
And I killed him.
I didn't pull the trigger. I didn't push her in front of the truck.
But I held the blood.
I prioritized a reserve supply for a woman with a superficial scratch over the life of my own child.
Bile rose in my throat, hot and acidic.
I spun the chair around and retched onto the expensive Persian rug.
Nothing came up but dry heaves and agony.
Gasping for air, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.
My eyes fell on the black leather book sitting next to the report.
The ledger.
I had seen her writing in it for years. I thought it was a household budget. Or a diary of social events.
I opened it.
It wasn't a budget.
It was an autopsy of our marriage.
Entry 1: Anniversary dinner. He forgot. He was at the gallery opening. Minus ten.
Entry 14: I had the flu. He slept at the hospital because Ariana was lonely. Minus five.
Entry 45: The fire. He saved her. He left me burning. Minus twenty.
I flipped through the pages, my heart hammering against my ribs.
Hundreds of entries. Years of neglect quantified in neat, architectural handwriting.
Every time I chose Ariana. Every time I dismissed Caroline. Every time I broke a vow.
She had been keeping score.
And I had been losing a game I didn't even know I was playing.
I turned to the last page.
The ink was smudged. There was a dried brown spot on the paper. Blood.
Minus five points.
Killed our child for her reserve.
Score: -5.
Below the score, a single line written in shaky cursive.
He killed the part of me that loved him.
I stared at the words until they blurred into a gray wash of tears.
I wasn't the hero of this story.
I wasn't the white knight saving the damsel from her trauma.
I was the villain.
I was the monster under the bed.
A sound tore out of my throat. A guttural, animalistic roar of pure despair.
I grabbed the separation papers.
Her signature was sharp. Final.
I crumpled them in my fist.
She couldn't leave.
She couldn't be gone.
I stood up, sending the chair crashing backward.
"Caroline!" I screamed at the empty walls.
The only answer was the echo of my own damnation.
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