Ashford General Hospital.
Chloe paced the hallway, unable to stand still.
Eliana’s blood type was rare Rh-negative.
When Eliana had first mentioned wanting to terminate the pregnancy, Chloe had insisted on reserving a supply in advance, just as a precaution.
It hadn’t been long since then.
The reserve hadn’t fully come in yet.
If they needed it now…
Chloe and Eliana went all the way back to childhood.
Inseparable, even as kids.
Chloe had grown up in a family of doctors, soaking up medical knowledge practically from the crib.
But back then, all of it lived in textbooks and secondhand lectures from her parents none of it real yet, none of it felt.
Until the day it became real.
She and Eliana had once snuck out together as teenagers.
Chloe had always chased a thrill, and that particular day it meant borrowing her older brother’s motorcycle and taking Eliana out for a joyride.
Eliana on the back, hair streaming, both of them laughing it had felt invincible.
Until the bike got away from her.
They went down hard.
Chloe walked away with scrapes.
Eliana was thrown clear and landed against a rock, tearing a deep gash into her leg.
A wound that wide, that deep.
Blood everywhere.
Chloe had called an ambulance in a blind panic and gotten Eliana to the hospital.
But the cut was too severe, and they’d been out in the countryside, the ambulance ride alone had eaten up precious time.
By the time they reached the hospital, Eliana had already lost too much blood.
That was the day Chloe first learned what Rh-negative actually meant a detail Eliana had mentioned once, in passing, years before.
The small rural hospital didn’t carry any in stock.
Eliana went into shock from the blood loss.
Chloe had called her father, sobbing, begging him to save her.
Eliana pulled through in the end a memory Chloe still carried like a scar of her own.
Eliana still had the mark on her leg to this day.
Years of cosmetic treatments had faded it, but never fully erased it.
Terrified Chloe would carry guilt over it forever, Eliana had dragged her to a tattoo studio, and the two of them had gotten matching ink over their respective scars.
“Eliana…”
Chloe shook the memory off and started working through her contact list again.
“Yes, it’s me, Chloe…”
“I’ve got a pregnant patient, car accident, might need a transfusion.
It’s urgent.”
“Hello, is this the donor network…?”
“Great the more people who can come in, the better.
We might not need it, but I want the margin covered.”
“Okay.
Thank you.”
After several calls and confirmation that everything was moving, Chloe finally felt a fraction of the tension in her chest ease.
She still had no real update on Eliana’s condition, which kept the anxiety humming underneath everything else.
To settle her nerves, she pulled the officer aside to get the full story of what had happened.
By the time she’d heard it all, Chloe was genuinely afraid.
“You’re saying someone tried to kill her?”
But who?
Her mind spun through possibilities.
Old enemies of the Hart family, resurfacing.
Someone targeting Eliana specifically because of her ties to Nathaniel to the entire Cole name.
The ongoing online circus around Vivian’s fake countdown, which had whipped up plenty of unstable, obsessive fans capable of anything.
Workplace conflicts.
Personal grudges.
Any number of smaller disputes.
Too many possibilities.
Far too wide a net to narrow down.
…
Inside the emergency room.
Eliana’s awareness came and went in fragments.
She caught only pieces of what was happening around her.
Someone examined her, hands moving with clinical precision.
The steady chorus of machines beeping around her.
Metallic, mechanical sounds layered over each other.
Voices, too, cutting in and out.
She couldn’t hold onto full sentences just scattered words.
“Bleeding.” “Pregnant patient.”
The baby.
Her baby.
It came back to her all at once.
Summoning everything she had left, Eliana forced the words out.
“Doctor…
please, save my baby.”
Regret hit her like a physical blow.
Back at the police station, right before she’d collapsed, that same wave of panic and grief had nearly swallowed her whole.
She’d wanted this child, once, as proof proof of a marriage, proof that what she and Nathaniel had was real.
Then she’d let go of him.
And, somewhere in that decision, she’d told herself she was letting go of the baby too.
But these past few days, feeling it grow inside her, something had shifted.
She’d started to hesitate.
Quietly.
Without fully admitting it to herself.
It wasn’t until this exact moment genuinely on the verge of losing it that the truth became impossible to ignore.
She didn’t want to let go.
Not even close.
This child was hers.
Connected to her by blood.
The same rare blood her father had passed down to her.
A bond that ran deeper than anything Nathaniel had ever given her.
This baby had nothing to do with him.
It was hers.
Only hers.
And she wanted to keep it.
…
Nathaniel drove faster than usual.
In the passenger seat, Vivian gripped her seatbelt and said nothing.
She figured her performance earlier had done its job; pushing further now risked overplaying it.
But Nathaniel…
She stole a glance at his profile.
On the surface, nothing looked different.
But his jaw was locked tight, his knuckles bleached white against the wheel and that told her everything his face wouldn’t.
He still cared.
About Eliana seeing someone else.
About all of it.
Vivian looked away, closed her eyes, let herself sag into the appearance of illness while her mind raced underneath it all.
The car pulled up outside Ashford General in record time.
Nathaniel had the door open before it fully stopped.
Vivian scrambled out after him and immediately doubled over, coughing up another mouthful of fake blood.
“I’m fine.” She wiped it away, voice deliberately weak.
“I was going to go eventually anyway.
Nathaniel, go check on Eliana first.”
His brow furrowed, worry plain in his eyes.
She pushed him toward the entrance anyway.
To anyone watching, it looked like she was sacrificing her own health for Eliana’s sake.
He pressed his lips together, then finally said, “I’ll go check on her.
Take care of yourself.”
“Mm.” Vivian nodded.
She watched him disappear into the hospital.
The moment he was gone, she pulled out her phone and started reading carefully through the messages waiting there.
Inside, Nathaniel’s stride lengthened with every step, until he was outright running.
Even he didn’t fully register how much panic was driving him forward.
He found Eliana’s room after a quick round of questions at the desk and found Chloe standing guard at the door, blocking his path.
His frown deepened.
“What’s wrong with her?” he demanded.
Chloe didn’t answer right away.
She just looked at him over, wary and calculating.
“What happened to her?” he pressed, forcing patience into his voice.
Chloe’s mind flashed back to what the officer had told her, the theory that Nathaniel might have wanted Eliana gone, cleanly, so he’d be free to marry Vivian without a fight.
Especially given how many calls he’d ignored tonight.
But she didn’t know how to put that into words, not without sounding unhinged.
Watching his patience run thin, she tried anyway.
“Nathaniel, are you really that set on marrying Vivian?
Couldn’t you have waited even one more day?”
He stared at her.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Chloe didn’t have an answer ready.
Seeing her hesitate, his anxiety finally broke through completely.
“Get out of my way!”