The Heir Contract

"Please, God, let me live. Let them live." Calla whispered to herself just as the surgical team took over.

They worked carefully while she lay still with her eyes fixed above her. She couldn't feel anything in her lower abdomen, all thanks to the epidural anesthesia. But suddenly, two cries pierced the air.

Tears slipped down her cheeks as her heart swelled with joy and sheer relief. It was successful! The surgery was successful, despite the numbness in her body.

With her chest rising and falling weakly, she watched the nurses tend to the two small bundles lying under the lights. Her babies. Hers. And Norman's. Even in her fatigue, the thought made her lips curve into a tiny smile.

Unfortunately, he hadn't been by her side through the pregnancy, not for a single moment. He hadn't been there during the vomiting, the loneliness, the nights she cried into her pillow. But none of that mattered now.

He would be proud. He'd see them, these perfect, tiny lives and he'd love her. Because this... this was proof she had always belonged to him.

Calla blinked and the lights above her blurred again as exhaustion pulled at her limbs. She turned her face toward the glass incubators, searching for their little faces.

But suddenly... something felt off.

The nurses had grown tense, including their movements which seemed rushed and quickened like they were in the middle of an emergency. Calla's weak smile faded.

One of the nurses reached for an equipment in a flurry and another held something up to the light. A monitor also began to beep frantically and that was when she saw it. One of the babies, her baby, was limp. His tiny body wasn't moving no matter what they did.

Panic gripped her at once.

"W...What's happening?" She asked hoarsely and tried to sit up, but no one responded.

No one even looked her way. They were all bent over the baby, calling names, switching tools, and working as fast as possible.

"What's happening to my baby?!" Calla asked, raising her voice this time.

But still, she got nothing.

Pushing against the bedrails, she forced herself upright as her muscles screamed in protest. The pain in her abdomen was unbearable, but she swung her legs over the side of the bed, determined to get to her baby.

But then, she slipped.

Her knees buckled and her body hit the floor with a thud. That finally caught the nurses' attention as they turned at once. Two of them then rushed over to carry her up.

"No...no! Let me go!" Calla sobbed. "Please...please let me hold them!"

She thrashed as best as her body would allow, reaching for the bassinets, but they held her back. "My baby... please... give him to me!"

"Miss Calla, please lie down..."

"No! I want my baby! I want to hold him... he needs me!"

They didn't respond and refused to let her go, despite her pleas. Just then, she saw one of the