Chapter 14 #14
Chapter 14
~ Dante ~
The moment I saw the doctor rush back into Shailyn's room, panic seized me — real, visceral panic that clawed at my insides like a living thing. I'd never felt anything like this in my entire life. Not when my father threatened to cut me off. Not when Dwayne returned to challenge my position. Not even when the H-GPT launch faced technical issues that could have tanked the company.
This was different. This was primal.
My hands clenched into fists at my sides, my jaw locked so tight I could feel my teeth grinding together. I wanted to do something but I was completely powerless. Trapped in this sterile waiting room while strangers worked to save my wife's life behind closed doors I couldn't breach.
Hannah's wailing cut through my thoughts like nails on a chalkboard. She was sobbing openly now, her whole body shaking with the force of her grief and fear. The sound grated against my nerves, making my skin crawl with irritation even as my own panic threatened to consume me.
Then, suddenly, without warning, she turned on me.
Hannah spun around, her tear-streaked face twisted with rage, and pointed her finger directly at my chest like it was a weapon. Her voice came out in a raw, broken scream that echoed off the hospital walls.
"You caused this, you asswipe!"
I blinked, too shocked to respond immediately. Had this nobody just called me an asswipe? To my face?
"If my friend doesn't survive this," she continued, her voice shaking with fury and grief, "I will kill you myself. Do you hear me? I will kill you."
Anger flooded through me, hot and immediate, burning away the shock. Who the fuck did she think she was, talking to me like that? I was Dante Belmar. CEO of SentientIQ. I could have her fired with a single phone call. I could destroy her entire career before she even knew what hit her.
"What do you mean?" I snapped back, taking a step toward her. "What's my business with this?"
She didn't back down. If anything, she moved closer, getting right in my face despite the fact that I towered over her.
"She fucking hit her head!" I continued, my voice rising. "How is that my fault? How is any of this…"
"How is it NOT your fault?" Hannah screamed, cutting me off.
Then she started ranting, her words tumbling out in an angry, broken torrent. She told me everything, about finding Shailyn in the bathroom, about Vanessa cornering her, about the things that bitch had said to my wife.
"She told Shailyn about sleeping with you," Hannah spat, disgust dripping from every word. "She told her how you talk about her behind her back. How you call her pathetic. How you compare them in bed. She broke your wife down piece by piece, and you…" She jabbed her finger into my chest hard enough to hurt. "You let that woman think she had the right to do that. You gave her permission when you fucked her. When you kept fucking her even though everyone in the company knows Shailyn is your wife."
I stood there, frozen, as Hannah's words sank in like stones.
Vanessa.
That fucking bitch.
Yes, I'd been sleeping with her. On and off for the past six months, whenever I needed a release and Shailyn wasn't available or wasn't interesting enough. Vanessa was convenient—always willing, always enthusiastic, never asking for more than I was willing to give.
But she wasn't supposed to talk to Shailyn. She wasn't supposed to rub it in my wife's face. That was crossing a line, breaking the unspoken rules of our arrangement.
She'd done it to hurt Shailyn. To break her down. To make herself feel superior.
And Shailyn — fragile, timid Shailyn who'd already been through hell in my office just hours earlier had been pushed past her breaking point.
Ugh. That bitch.
She didn't know it was only supposed to be short-term. Just a distraction. Just something to pass the time.
Fury ignited in my chest, different from the anger I'd felt toward Hannah. This was cold and calculating. Vanessa had caused this. She'd hurt what was mine, and she was going to pay for
it.
I pulled out my phone and dialed my assistant, my movements sharp and controlled.
"Get me Vanessa's employee file," I said the moment he picked up. "Her address, her family information, everything. And do it now."
"Sir? Is everything…"
"Now."
I hung up without waiting for a response. I was going to deal with Vanessa in ways she didn't expect. Ways that would make her regret ever speaking Shailyn's name, let alone destroying her.
But first, I had to deal with Hannah.
I turned back to her, ready to lash out, to remind her of her place and exactly who she was speaking to. The words were right there, burning on my tongue, ready to reduce her to tears.
But something stopped me.
Maybe it was the way she was still crying, her whole body shaking with grief for my wife or it was the fact that she was right—at least partially right, even if I'd never admit it out loud. Maybe it was just exhaustion from this entire nightmare of a day.
I clenched my jaw and decided against it. I just kept mute, turning away from her and stalking to the far end of the waiting room where I could be alone with my thoughts.
Behind me, I heard my father clear his throat—a deliberate, pointed sound that carried judgment even without words.
And Dwayne. Of course Dwayne was there, watching everything with those cold, sharp eyes of his. When I glanced back, he was staring directly at me with an expression that made my blood boil. Disapproval. Disgust. Self-righteousness.
What the fuck was his deal? Why did he care so much? She was my wife, not his. This was my problem to handle, not his.
Ugh.
The tension in the room was suffocating. Hannah's sobs had quieted to soft whimpers. My father sat rigid in his wheelchair, his face unreadable. Dwayne remained standing, still as a statue, still watching me like I was something disgusting he'd found on the bottom of his shoe.
And I stood apart from all of them, my suit still covered in Shailyn's blood, my hands shaking with a mixture of rage and fear I couldn't quite control.
Minutes crawled by. Or maybe it was hours. Time had lost all meaning in this fluorescent-lit purgatory.
Finally, the doctor emerged again. His scrubs were clean now, changed from the blood-soaked ones he'd been wearing earlier. His face was tired but calm as he approached us.
We all moved at once, even my father wheeling himself forward, crowding around the doctor like he held the secrets to life and death itself.
Which, I supposed, he did.
"She's stable," the doctor said, and the relief that flooded through me was so intense it made my knees weak. "Her vitals are strong. We were able to control the swelling and repair the damage."
Hannah let out a sob of relief, her hands flying to her mouth.
"However," the doctor continued, and that single word made my stomach drop, "she'll likely remain unconscious for the next forty-eight hours. Her body needs time to heal."
"But she'll be okay?" Hannah asked, her voice small and hopeful. "She'll wake up?"
The doctor hesitated. Just for a second, but it was enough to make my heart stop.
"There's something you need to know," he said carefully, his eyes moving between all of us. "When we were treating her, we discovered a small amount of swelling in her brain. We've done everything we can to minimize the damage, but there's a possibility that when she wakes up, she may experience some memory loss."
The words didn't register at first. They just floated there, meaningless sounds that my brain refused to process.
"Memory loss?" Dwayne spoke for the first time, his voice sharp. "What kind of memory loss? How much?"
The doctor spread his hands in a helpless gesture. "There's no way to know until she wakes up.
It could be minor—just the events of the past few days. Or it could be more extensive. Retrograde amnesia can affect weeks, months, or even years of memory depending on the severity and location of the injury."
What the fuck?
"We won't know the extent of her condition until she regains consciousness," the doctor continued. "At that point, we can run cognitive tests and determine what, if anything, she's lost."
He looked at each of us in turn, his expression grave. "I know this is difficult to hear. But the important thing is that she's alive and stable. Memory can return over time, especially with the right support and therapy. We just need to be patient."
Patient. He wanted us to be patient while my wife lay in a hospital bed, possibly forgetting everything, forgetting me, forgetting our marriage, forgetting five years of our lives together.
"Can we see her?" my father asked, his voice rough with emotion.
The doctor nodded. "One at a time. And only for a few minutes. She needs rest."
Hannah moved first, practically running toward the direction the doctor indicated. I wanted to stop her and to remind her that I was Shailyn's husband, that I should go first—but I couldn't make my body move.
Because suddenly, a terrible thought occurred to me.
If Shailyn woke up with amnesia, if she didn't remember our marriage — would she remember H-GPT? Would she remember giving me the code that had made my career? Would she remember any of the things that tied her to me, that made her mine?
And if she didn't remember...
What if she remembered the wrong things? What if the last thing in her memory was me in that office, my hands around her throat, my voice threatening her?
What if she woke up and saw me as the enemy?
What the fuck? What the actual fuck is happening?
My carefully constructed world was crumbling around me, and for the first time in my life, I had absolutely no idea how to stop it.