Chapter 2

When the ambulance siren cut through the wedding march drifting from the chapel, my consciousness was already slipping, the blood pooling beneath me turning cold.

I couldn't let the paramedics get locked out. Fighting through the crushing pain in my abdomen, I dragged myself across the frigid floor toward the door, my shaking hand barely managing to turn the lock.

The hallway stood empty. Everyone was in the chapel, cheering for Maggie in my wedding dress.

Two paramedics burst around the corner with a gurney, shoving the half-closed door wide.

The moment they saw me collapsed in blood, their faces drained of color.

"Ma'am, stay with us—we're getting you to the hospital right now!" One paramedic lifted me onto the stretcher while the other fitted an oxygen mask over my face, his hands pressing carefully on my abdomen. "Severe hemorrhaging, possible miscarriage in progress. We need surgery, now."

"My baby..." I caught his sleeve weakly, tears finally spilling over. "Please..."

"We've got you. Just breathe."

They rushed the gurney toward the chapel exit, wheels rattling urgently against the marble.

The clatter and crackling radio calls shattered the reverent atmosphere, heads turning throughout the ceremony.

Through the half-open doors, Maggie stood at the altar. Her gaze found mine as the stretcher rolled past.

The next instant, she grabbed her head dramatically and crumpled with a piercing scream.

"Maggie!"

Raymond's roar drowned out the organ. He lunged forward, catching her before she hit the ground. "Maggie? Look at me! Is it the tumor?"

She curled into his arms, fingers clawing at his jacket, her breathing shallow and labored.

"I'm here. I've got you." All color had left Raymond's face. He swept her up, the oversized wedding gown bunching awkwardly, and tore out of the chapel after the sound of gurney wheels still echoing in the corridor.

In the hallway leading to the exit, he intercepted the paramedics rushing me outside.

"Stop! She needs help—her brain tumor, she's seizing!" Raymond didn't even glance at the stretcher, his voice cracking with panic.

"Sir, move! This woman is hemorrhaging—suspected miscarriage. She could go into shock!" The lead paramedic tried to shoulder past him, protecting the gurney.

Only then did Raymond's eyes drop.

Recognition flickered when he saw my face, his gaze traveling down to the blood-soaked fabric clinging to my legs. His expression went rigid.

"Raymond..." Maggie's whisper was barely audible, her pale fingers twisted in his shirt. "It hurts..."

That broken plea snapped something in him.

"I need that stretcher!" Eyes wild, he shoved the paramedic aside and grabbed the gurney's rail, wrenching it sideways.

The world tilted.

I hit the marble floor hard, the impact driving the air from my lungs. The pain in my abdomen detonated, white-hot and blinding. The oxygen mask clattered away. I couldn't even scream.

"Catherine, enough of this performance!"

Patrick limped out behind them, his cane striking the floor with each word, disgust twisting his features. "You took a couple falls and scraped yourself up—you're fine! How dare you steal medical care from Maggie!"

The pain was eating through me, stealing my breath. I lifted my head from the spreading pool of crimson, forcing myself to meet their eyes—Jolene's, Raymond's.

"I'm pregnant." The words came out hoarse, my throat thick with the copper taste of blood. "Raymond... it's yours."

The corridor went still.

Then Jolene laughed, sharp and cruel.

"Pregnant?" She stared down at me like I was something she'd scraped off her shoe, her gaze flicking to the blood beneath me. "You'd fake a pregnancy? Stage a miscarriage to ruin Maggie's wedding and manipulate Raymond back into your bed?"

"Mom, I—"

"Save it!" Jolene stepped back, actually lifting her hem to avoid my blood. "Your lies are pathetic."

Raymond, the father, didn't pause at those words. Not for a second.

He just held Maggie tighter, his eyes sliding past me without focus, and stepped directly through the blood as he strode toward the exit—toward my ambulance.

The paramedic moved to stop him, furious, but Patrick blocked his path. A check appeared in the old man's hand, pressed hard against the paramedic's chest.

"One hundred thousand dollars. Get in that ambulance and save my daughter." Patrick's voice dropped to a deadly whisper. "Or I'll make sure you never work in medicine again."

Under that kind of threat, the paramedic's resistance crumbled. His jaw clenched tight, but he turned and ran for the ambulance.

Seconds later, the doors slammed shut. Red and blue lights strobed across my vision as the siren wailed, the vehicle speeding away into the distance.

I lay motionless on the cold floor, blood soaking through everything below my waist.

My fiancé. My biological parents. For a woman faking a headache, they'd cut off my baby's only chance without hesitation.

The chaos meant nobody noticed me until church staff came through to restore order. Their startled cries echoed as they found me in the blood, fumbling for their phones to call 911 again.

Time blurred. Eventually, a second ambulance arrived.

By the time they wheeled me into the ER at Central Hospital, I could barely see. Surgical lights blazed down as cold instruments moved inside me.

"Ms. Caldwell? Can you hear me?"

The doctor's voice seemed miles away, weighted with regret. "I'm sorry. You arrived too late—there's no fetal heartbeat. To save your life, we need to perform an emergency D&C."

"Okay."

The word came out flat. Empty.

No tears. No begging. The calmness scared me.

That tiny life, the one that should have arrived with so much love, had been killed by his own father and grandparents in that hallway.

The surgery took two hours. When the anesthesia faded, I lay alone on the narrow bed, staring at the gray sky beyond the window.

A nurse entered quietly, setting a thin folder on my bedside table. Sympathy softened her eyes.

"Ms. Caldwell, this is your report. Also... would you like us to contact your family?"

"No."

I picked up the folder, opened it to the line that read "fetus without vital signs," and closed it again, laying it face-down.

"I don't have any family."