Chapter 252
Sophia's POV
The Next Morning
The nightmare came in fragments—sharp, disjointed flashes that felt more like memory than dream.
Blood pooling on white tile. My mother's hand, pale and still. The acrid smell of hospital disinfectant mixing with something metallic and wrong.
I jerked awake with a gasp, my heart hammering violently. Sweat soaked through my nightshirt, and for several disorienting seconds I couldn't remember where I was.
Then I saw the unfamiliar ceiling, felt the too-soft mattress beneath me, and remembered.
Lucas's safehouse. My prison.
I pressed a hand to my chest, trying to ease the tightness that made each breath feel insufficient. The baby fluttered—a strange, fish-like movement that was becoming more frequent—and I instinctively moved my hand lower.
Just a dream, I told myself. Mom is fine. She's at home with Dad, probably making breakfast right now, worrying about me like she always does.
But the tightness in my chest wouldn't ease. I reached for my phone on the nightstand, needing to hear my mother's voice even if it meant Lucas would know I'd broken his rules about outside contact.
The screen lit up with notifications. Dozens of them.
News alerts. Text messages. Missed calls.
My hands started shaking before I even opened the first one.
BREAKING: Rosa Cruz, 58, hospitalized in critical condition following severe asthma attack—
The phone slipped from my fingers, clattering onto the hardwood floor.
No. No, no, no.
I lunged for it, nearly toppling off the bed. My shin cracked against the nightstand as I scrambled to retrieve the phone.
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital... critical condition... sources say the attack was severe...
The words blurred together, impossible to process. I scrolled frantically through the other notifications, looking for something—anything—that would tell me this was a mistake.
But every article said the same thing.
Critical condition. Severe asthma attack.
Hospital. I needed to get to the hospital. I needed to see her.
I was moving before I'd made a conscious decision, stumbling toward the door with my phone clutched in one shaking hand. The room tilted sickeningly around me, but I forced myself forward.
I yanked the bedroom door open and ran.
The hallway stretched impossibly long in front of me. I could hear my own breathing—ragged, too fast—and the pounding of my heart seemed to echo off the walls.
I found the staircase and started down. My foot caught on something and suddenly I was falling.
I threw my hands out instinctively, managing to catch myself on the railing before I went headfirst down the remaining steps. My phone tumbled down the stairs with a series of sickening cracks.
"Fuck," I gasped, clinging to the railing with both hands, my whole body shaking.
The baby moved again, a stronger flutter this time, and some distant part of my brain registered that I needed to be more careful.
But all I could see was my mother's face.
I forced myself down the rest of the stairs, moving more carefully but no less desperately. My retrieved phone screen was spiderwebbed with cracks, but it still worked.
The front door loomed ahead, solid oak and probably locked. I didn't care.
I was reaching for the handle when two security guards materialized from the side hallway, moving to block my path.
"Miss Cruz." The taller one held up one placating hand. "I'm going to need you to step back from the door."
"My mother is in the hospital." My voice came out raw, barely recognizable. "I need to see her. I need to—" The words caught in my throat. "Please. Just let me go."
"We have our orders, ma'am." His expression was sympathetic but immovable. "I'm calling Mr. Reynolds now."
"Fuck your orders!" I lunged for the door handle, knowing it was futile but unable to stop myself.
He caught my arm—gently, but firmly—while his partner pulled out his phone.
"Mr. Reynolds? Yes, sir. Miss Cruz is attempting to leave the property. She's quite distressed. Yes, sir. Understood."
He ended the call and looked at me with something that might have been pity.
"Mr. Reynolds is on his way. He says he's arranging immediate transport to the hospital."
"I don't want his transport!" I tried to wrench my arm free. "I want to see my mother! Don't you understand? She's in critical condition!"
"The car is being prepared now, Miss Cruz. Five minutes."
Five minutes felt like an eternity, but I forced myself to stop struggling. I sank onto the bottom step of the staircase instead, wrapping my arms around myself.
Mom. Please be okay. Please.
The ride to NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital passed in a blur of traffic and silence. I sat in the back of Lucas's SUV, staring out the window without seeing anything, my cracked phone clutched in both hands like a lifeline.
When we pulled up to a side entrance—private, away from the media circus I could see gathering at the main doors—I was out of the car before it had fully stopped.
"Miss Cruz, wait—"
I didn't wait. I ran.
The hospital corridors were a maze of white walls and fluorescent lights, the smell of disinfectant sharp in my nose. A nurse tried to stop me at the ICU entrance, but I pushed past her.
Room 347. That's what the news article said. ICU, Room 347.
I found it at the end of a long hallway, the door partially open.
And froze.
Through the gap, I could see my mother's still form on the bed, tubes and wires connecting her to machines that beeped and hummed with mechanical indifference. Her face was pale, almost gray, and so terrifyingly still that for one horrible moment I thought I was too late.
Then I saw the slight rise and fall of her chest, and something in me unclenched just enough to let me breathe again.
I stepped forward, my hand reaching for the door—
And saw my father.
He was sitting in a chair beside the bed, his head bowed, one of my mother's hands clasped between both of his. His shoulders shook with silent sobs.
The sight of him—alone, devastated, holding onto my mother like she might slip away at any moment—broke something inside me.
I shoved the door open hard enough that it slammed against the wall.
My father's head snapped up, his eyes widening in shock when he saw me. For a moment he just stared, like he couldn't believe what he was seeing.
"Sophia?" His voice cracked on my name, disbelief and hope warring in his expression.
Then he was crossing the room in three long strides, pulling me into a crushing embrace that knocked the breath from my lungs.
"My precious daughter," he choked out, his whole body shaking. "You're alive. God, you're alive."
I wrapped my arms around him, confused by the intensity of his reaction but too overwhelmed to question it. "Dad, I'm here. I'm okay."
He pulled back just enough to look at me, his hands gripping my shoulders like he was afraid I might disappear. His eyes were red-rimmed and wild, his face haggard in a way I'd never seen before.
"I knew it," he said hoarsely. "I knew that news was a lie. I knew it in my bones—you couldn't be dead, you couldn't be—"
"Dead?" The word came out strangled. "Dad, what are you talking about?"
But before he could answer, I heard footsteps in the hallway behind me. Heavy, purposeful footsteps that I recognized even before I turned around.
Lucas stood in the doorway, his expression carefully controlled but his jaw clenched tight. He looked like he'd been running—his usually immaculate appearance slightly disheveled, a sheen of sweat on his forehead.
Our eyes met, and something passed between us. Something dark and terrible that made my stomach drop.
My father's entire body went rigid. He stepped in front of me, positioning himself between Lucas and me like a human shield.
"You," my father said, his voice low and dangerous. "Get out."