Chapter 13 #13
Chapter 13
~ Dante ~
(Back to Present)
"What?"
The word came out sharper than I intended, slicing through the air like a blade, but Hannah's panicked rambling wasn't making any sense. She was shaking, gasping for breath, her hands clutching at my sleeve as if I were the only solid thing left in the room. Shailyn... floor... something about blood. The words jumbled together in my head, refusing to form a coherent picture.
My pulse spiked. A cold, unfamiliar dread crept up my spine.
But I knew something bad had happened. I could see it written all over Hannah's tear-streaked face. The terror in her eyes was raw, unfiltered, the kind that came from witnessing something no one should ever have to see.
I didn't wait to hear more. I was already moving, already pushing past the shocked board members, already running down the hallway toward the commotion I could hear building near the women's bathroom.
Chairs scraped back. Voices rose behind me, someone calling my name, but none of it mattered.
Meanwhile, Dwayne was far ahead of me. What the hell is wrong with him?
The thought burned as I caught sight of his back disappearing around the corner, his long strides eating up the distance. The sight of him there, moving with urgency, with concern — ignited something ugly in my chest.
Staff members crowded around the entrance, their voices rising in panic. Someone was shouting about calling an ambulance. Someone else was crying. The hallway smelled faintly of cleaning chemicals and fear.
I shoved through the crowd, ignoring protests, ignoring hands grabbing at my arms, and that's when I saw her.
Shailyn.
On the floor.
Blood. There was so much blood pooling around her, soaking into her clothes, spreading across the white tile like a crimson halo. Her face was pale and her eyes were closed, her body completely still.
For one horrifying second, my brain refused to process what I was seeing.
Fear gripped me. Real, genuine fear that made my hands shake and my heart stop. The kind of fear that hollowed you out, that stripped away power and control and left nothing behind but panic.
This wasn't supposed to happen. Shailyn was supposed to be at her desk, thinking about what I'd said, remembering who she belonged to. She wasn't supposed to be here, unconscious and bleeding out on a bathroom floor.
The image didn’t fit the narrative I’d built in my head, and the dissonance made me feel sick.
I heard footsteps behind me, heavy, purposeful. Dwayne. Of course it was Dwayne, rushing to play the hero again.
He was ahead of me before, probably went to get help. Asshole!
He moved toward Shailyn like he had every right to touch her, to help her, and something primal and possessive roared to life inside me. Something dark and violent that had nothing to do with reason.
No.
I was faster. I dropped to my knees beside her and scooped her into my arms, careful to avoid the blood even as it soaked into my expensive suit. I barely noticed the wet warmth seeping through the fabric. She was so light, so fragile. Like she might break if I held her too tight.
Her head lolled against my shoulder, her hair sticking to her cheek, and my chest constricted painfully.
"Get the car," I barked at security, my voice coming out rougher than I intended. "Now!"
They scrambled instantly, radios crackling, shoes pounding against the floor.
I didn't look at Dwayne as I carried Shailyn past him. Didn't acknowledge the way his hands had been reaching for her, the way he'd been ready to take her from me. She was my wife. I would be the one to save her.
The drive to the hospital was a blur. Sirens wailed as the city streaked past us, red lights flashing in frantic pulses. I held Shailyn in the backseat, her head resting against my chest, her blood staining everything it touched. I kept my hand pressed against wherever the bleeding seemed worst, trying to stem the flow, trying to do something useful.
Her skin felt cold.
I tried to act like it didn't affect me. Like I was calm and in control. But my hands were shaking, and my jaw was clenched so tight it ached. My heart hammered violently, each beat a reminder of how close I might be to losing her.
At the hospital, everything happened fast. Nurses rushed out with a gurney. Shailyn was lifted from my arms — I almost didn't let them take her, and wheeled away behind double doors I wasn't allowed to follow through.
The emptiness where her weight had been felt wrong. Jarring.
"Sir, you'll need to wait here," a nurse told me gently. "The doctors will update you as soon as they can."
Her voice was calm, practiced, but it did nothing to steady me.
I found myself in a waiting room that smelled like antiseptic and despair. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. I paced. Sat down. Stood up. Paced again. My suit was ruined, covered in Shailyn's blood, but I couldn't bring myself to care.
I scrubbed my hands over my face, only smearing the blood further.
Not long after, footsteps echoed in the hallway. Hannah burst through the waiting room doors, her face blotchy from crying. Behind her came Dwayne, his expression unreadable, and my father being wheeled in by his assistant.
Of course they'd followed. Of course Dwayne couldn't just stay away.
"How is she?" Hannah rushed toward me, her voice breaking. "Is she okay? What did the doctors say?"
I pointed at the obvious, irritation flooding through me despite, or maybe because of my own fear. "She's in surgery. What do you think?"
The words tasted bitter as soon as they left my mouth.
I rolled my eyes, but the gesture felt hollow. Hannah flinched at my tone, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks.
Silence stretched between us, thick and heavy.
We waited. Minutes felt like hours. The clock on the wall ticked loudly, each second an eternity. Every time footsteps approached, my heart leapt, only to crash again when they passed by.
Finally, a doctor emerged, still wearing surgical scrubs splattered with blood. My blood turned to ice.
"The surgery was successful," he said, and I felt something loosen in my chest. My lungs drew in a shaky breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. "We were able to stop the internal bleeding and…"
He stopped mid-sentence, his eyes going wide.
That's when I heard it.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The sound was coming from down the hall, from the direction of the recovery rooms. Not the steady beep of a heart monitor doing its job, but the frantic, urgent beeping that meant something was wrong. Critically wrong.
My pulse roared in my ears.
"Code blue!" someone shouted.
The doctor's face went pale. He didn't finish his sentence. He just turned and ran, his shoes squeaking against the linoleum as he sprinted back toward the recovery wing. Nurses rushed past us, pushing a crash cart, their faces grim and focused.
The beeping got louder, more insistent, joined now by the sound of shouting voices and running feet.
"What's happening?" Hannah's voice was small and terrified. "What's wrong? Why are they…"
But no one answered her. The hospital staff were too busy trying to save someone's life.
Shailyn's life.
I stood frozen in the middle of the waiting room, my father's hand gripping his wheelchair armrest so hard his knuckles had gone white, Dwayne standing rigid beside him.
And all I could hear was that terrible, endless beeping, and the awful silence that would follow if it ever stopped.