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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