Chapter 74 Lost Control

Chapter 74 Lost Control
Chapter 74: Lost Control

Dianna woke up with a sharp gasp, as if she had been pulled out of deep water at the last second.

Air filled her lungs too quickly, too harshly, and her body reacted before her mind fully caught up. Her fingers curled into the sheets beneath her, gripping them as if they were the only thing keeping her anchored to reality. The sudden movement startled the nurses beside her bed. One of them stepped back in surprise while another immediately leaned forward to check the monitors.

“Vitals are spiking,” one nurse said quickly, eyes flicking over the machine readings.

“Ma'am, can you hear me?” another asked while adjusting the oxygen tube near her face.

But Dianna was not listening.

Her head turned sharply, eyes wide and searching as panic settled in. The room was too bright, too sterile.

White walls. White curtains. The steady beeping of machines. The faint smell of antiseptic that clung to everything.

Hospital.

She was still in the hospital.

Her breathing remained uneven, but her thoughts were already running ahead of her body, desperate and unfocused before sharpening and turned clearer.

“Theodore…” she whispered, her voice rough from unconsciousness.

The nurses exchanged quick glances.

“Ma’am, you need to stay still,” one of them said gently while checking her IV line. “You’ve just woken up. Your body is still recovering.”

But Dianna barely registered the words. Her gaze moved across the room again, as if she expected him to appear the moment she focused hard enough.

“Theodore,” she said again, stronger, more urgent.

But there was no answer.

Her fingers tightened around the blanket.

“Where is he?” she asked, her voice cracking at the edges.

One nurse hesitated before answering carefully. “He was here earlier. He spoke with the doctor, but he is not in the room right now.”

Dianna’s breath hitched.

"He is not here?"

She pushed herself up despite the nurse’s immediate protest.

“Ma’am, please don’t sit up too fast–”

“I need to find him,” Dianna said, cutting through the warning without meaning to raise her voice. It came out strained, almost breathless, but firm enough that it stopped the nurse for a moment.

Her heart was beating too fast and too loud.

Her thoughts were still messy, but one thing remained painfully clear beneath everything else.

She needed to see him.

Because the last thing she remembered was not the pain.

It was his voice.

His hands holding hers.

The way he looked at her like she was something he had finally found after losing for too long.

But even now, something about that memory did not feel finished. It felt like a thread still pulling her forward, refusing to let her stay still.

“I have to see him,” she repeated softer, almost to herself.

The nurses continued speaking, trying to calm her down, but their voices blended into the background. Dianna’s focus had already drifted far beyond the room.

Meanwhile, several floors below, Theodore was walking through the hospital corridor.

His steps were steady, controlled, but his mind was anything but.

The phone call he had just ended still echoed in his thoughts. Every word from the doctor earlier had settled heavier than the information.

There is a problem at hand.

Theodore’s jaw tightened slightly as he walked past the glass doors near the hospital exit. The building’s automatic doors reflected his figure briefly, but he did not slow down to look at himself.

He should have already left.

There was nothing else to wait for. Dianna was stable. The baby was safe. That alone should have been enough to leave the hospital and begin handling everything else that needed to be done.

But he did not leave.

Because the rest of it was not simple.

His mind kept returning to the same conclusion no matter how many times he tried to push it away.

If Dianna’s condition changed again, or if the hospital needed blood they did not have, there was only one immediate solution.

Her mother.

And Theodore already knew what kind of person that woman was.

Dianna’s pain did not begin with her absence. It began with her presence. With the damage she left behind. With everything Dianna had spent years quietly carrying without ever being given comfort for it.

And yet, that same woman might now be the only reason Dianna stayed alive.

The contradiction sat heavily in his chest.

His fingers curled slightly at his side as he slowed near the exit.

He had dealt with worse men than her mother. He had already made decisions that most people would consider unforgivable. He had built an alliance he never would have touched before Dianna disappeared.

He had destroyed his father without hesitation.

He had chosen sides that required him to become something colder and sharper.

And he had done all of it for one reason.

To bring Dianna back.

To keep her.

So if this was just another obstacle, then it should have been simple.

But it was not.

Because Dianna would never see it that way.

That was the part that troubled him.

If she found out what he was considering, what he was prepared to do, she would not understand it as protection. She would see it as danger.

Something that crossed a line she would not forgive.

Theodore exhaled slowly, stopping just before the final doors.

For a brief moment, he stood there while people moved around him, unaware of the decisions forming in his mind.

He had already crossed so many lines to get here.

But this one felt different.

Because it would be done in her name.

That thought lingered longer than the others, heavier than anything he had carried in months.

Theodore exhaled slowly and shifted his weight forward, ready to leave the hospital behind and begin what needed to be done.

But before he could take another step, a hurried voice cut through the hallway.

A nurse came running toward him, breathless, her steps uneven as she closed the distance quickly. The panic in her expression was immediate, sharp enough to interrupt even his thoughts.

“Stop! Sir! Please do not leave!”

His stride faltered.

Theodore turned slightly, his eyes narrowing as she stopped in front of him.

“What is it?” he asked.

The nurse pressed a hand against her chest, trying to steady her breathing before speaking. “She is awake,” she said quickly, her voice still strained from running. “Your wife, she just woke up.”

For a brief moment, Theodore did not react.

Then something in his expression shifted sharply.

A subtle break in control, like something inside him had snapped into motion before his mind could fully catch up.

And before the nurse could say another word, he was already running back the way he came.