Chapter 112: Get him away from her

The exact second I saw Megan, my legs moved on pure, unadulterated instinct. I ran.

I didn’t care that Lucien’s crisp white shirt was utterly drenched in dark, drying blood. I didn’t care that Vincent’s knuckles were violently split open and raw, or that Zane looked like he had walked straight out of an active war zone. I didn’t see the damage on them.

All I saw was her.

Alive. Barely conscious, limp, and broken—but alive.

"Megan!" My voice tore from my throat, a ragged, breathless sob as I crashed to my knees on the hardwood floor right beside Vincent’s legs.

Vincent carefully lowered her onto the plush rug, his movements surprisingly tender for a man who had just dismantled a warehouse full of hostiles. She was completely deadweight between them. Up close, the sight of her made my chest tighten so violently it felt like my ribs were cracking. Her face was deathly pale, her lower lip split open and caked with dried blood, and angry, purple bruises were already blooming like dark flowers across the delicate skin of her neck and arms. Her clothes were torn, damp from the rain, and her breathing was shallow and uneven.

"Oh my God… oh my God, Megan," I whimpered, my hands hovering over her before I finally grabbed her cold, trembling fingers.

Her eyelids fluttered weakly, fighting the heavy pull of unconsciousness, until a sliver of her hazel eyes locked onto me. "Sarah…"

That one whispered word nearly broke me in half.

I squeezed her hand tightly, pressing it against my cheek. "It’s okay. I’m right here. You’re safe now. They got you."

Her fingers barely had the strength to twitch against mine, a frail response that terrified me down to my bones.

Lucien’s authoritative voice cut through the room like a razor blade, sharp and completely focused. "She’s lost blood from a laceration on her shoulder. She needs a trauma team now."

Vincent was already on his feet, his chest heaving as he shouted down the hallway for the armored convoy to be brought back around. Zane didn't even look up from his tactical phone, his voice flat and commanding as he dictated orders directly to the chief of medicine at our private hospital wing.

Everything was moving fast. Entirely too fast. The world was spinning on a chaotic axis, a blur of motion and sound. Ethan stepped forward, his face a mask of protective fury, and carefully scooped Megan's fragile body into his arms. Amara was right behind him, wrapping thick cashmere blankets around her shivering shoulders to combat the shock.

The estate guards flooded the corridors, aggressively clearing a straight path to the foyer. My heart was pounding so violently against my sternum that a loud, high-pitched ringing filled my ears, making me dizzy.

"She’s going to be completely okay, right?" I asked, looking frantically between the brothers as we rushed down the stairs. "Lucien? Vincent? Someone tell me she's going to make it."

Nobody answered me.

That heavy, suffocating silence from the men who usually ruled the city with absolute certainty terrified me more than any threat ever could.

We piled back into the armored vehicles, the tires screaming against the wet asphalt before the doors were even fully latched. Lucien took the wheel, driving with a savage, reckless speed that sent us hurtling through the dark, rain-slicked streets.

Vincent sat directly beside me in the back, his massive chest still heaving with residual adrenaline. Zane occupied the passenger seat, monitoring real-time security feeds of the hospital perimeter. Ethan and Amara followed closely in the secondary armored SUV with Megan.

I sat there, staring blankly ahead, my hands shaking so violently I couldn't make them stop.

"She was bleeding," I whispered, the horrific image of her split lip burned into my eyelids. "There was so much blood on her clothes."

Vincent reached across the seat and firmly grabbed my trembling hand, his grip solid and unyielding. "She’s breathing, Sarah. She’s alive. Focus on that."

"That doesn’t mean she’s going to be okay, Vincent! You don't know what they did to her!"

He shifted, turning his body toward me, his blue eyes flashing with an intense, raw gravity. "She fought them, kitten. The medics said she took a piece out of the bastard who grabbed her before they managed to subdue her. She didn't break."

That made the tears spill over completely, hot and heavy down my cheeks. Because of course she fought. Megan always fought. She was the fiercest, most loyal person I had ever known. She fought for the people she loved. She fought for me. And just an hour ago, I had sat in a room and almost allowed myself to believe that she had willingly betrayed me.

The crushing weight of that guilt sat like a serrated knife directly in my chest.

Vincent noticed the sudden shift in my posture, his thumb rubbing soothing circles over my knuckles. "She didn't blame you, Sarah. The whole time we were breaching that warehouse, she was trying to keep them away from the data files. She protected you."

I nodded miserably, wiping my face with the back of my free hand. "I know. I know she did."

"She loves you," he murmured, his voice dropping into a rare, quiet tenderness. "And we protect what we love. Remember that."

Those words made a ragged sob tear from my throat, the reality of her sacrifice completely overwhelming my senses.

The sleek, stark white facade of the private hospital wing finally materialized through the sheets of pouring rain. The exact second the SUV slammed to a halt at the emergency bay, Ethan burst through the rear doors of the secondary car, rushing Megan through the sliding glass entrance.

A specialized trauma team was already waiting in the lobby, syringes and gurneys at the ready. Instantly, the entire environment devolved into a blur of clinical chaos. Stretchers clattered against the linoleum. Nurses shouted out vital signs. Rapid-fire questions about allergies and blood types echoed off the sterile walls.

And through it all, there was blood. Too much dark, terrifying blood staining the white sheets as they wheeled her toward the trauma bay.

I stood completely frozen in the center of the hallway, a ghost watching a nightmare unfold. My entire body felt strangely numb, the tips of my fingers tingling as the adrenaline began to drain from my system, leaving a hollow, exhausting void in its place.

Lucien stepped up tightly beside me, his large, heavy hand resting flat against my upper back, offering a solid barrier between me and the chaos. "The best surgeons in the state are in that room, Sarah. She is in the safest hands possible."

I nodded automatically, staring at the double doors where Megan had vanished. "Yeah. Okay."

But the moment the words left my lips, a bizarre, foreign sensation rippled through my lower abdomen. My body felt weird. Tight. Uncomfortably heavy.

Suddenly, a massive, violent cramp seized my uterus. It was so sharp, so suddenly agonizing, that it knocked the breath straight out of my lungs. I winced hard, my body involuntarily doubling over.

Vincent’s predatory eyes caught the movement in a split second. "Sarah? What’s wrong?"

I forced my posture straight, swallowing hard against a sudden wave of nausea. "Nothing. I'm fine. Just a cramp."

But I wasn't fine. Before I could even draw a shallow breath, another contraction hit me. This one was entirely different—sharper, stronger, a white-hot blade of agony slicing straight through my lower back and radiating down my thighs.

A soft gasp of pure pain escaped me, and I instinctively reached out, my fingers clawing desperately into the fabric of Lucien’s sleeve.

Lucien’s entire frame stiffened instantly, his arm turning to iron beneath my grip as he looked down at my face. "Sarah? Talk to me. What is it?"

The pain was dropping lower now, a heavy, bearing-down pressure that made my knees begin to tremble. I bent forward slightly, my eyes wide with a sudden, rising panic.

Zane abandoned his phone, moving into my personal space in a heartbeat, his large hands anchoring my shoulders to keep me upright. "Is it the baby? Sarah, answer me."

I tried to use Amara's breathing technique, desperately pushing oxygen into my lungs to fight through the wave of pain. "I... I don’t know. It hurts. It hurts really badly."

And then—

A sudden, terrifying sensation of intense warmth blossomed between my thighs. It was a violent, unprompted rush of fluid. Too much. Too fast. It completely soaked through my clothes in a matter of seconds, pooling around my bare feet on the pristine white tile floor.

I froze entirely, my heart stopping dead in my chest.

Vincent looked down at the floor, his blue eyes widening in a look of absolute, uncharacteristic shock. "Lucien."

Lucien followed his brother's gaze down to the tile. In an instant, the clinical composure on his handsome face shattered completely. The calm, untouchable billionaire vanished, replaced by something raw and desperate. "What?"

I looked down, my breath catching in my throat as the reality of the damp tile crashed over me. No. No, no, no. This wasn't supposed to happen. It was entirely too early.

"My water," I whispered, the words barely audible over the roaring in my ears. "My water just broke."

The words had barely left my mouth before absolute chaos erupted around us for the second time that morning. Only this time, the terror was entirely centered on me.

My knees completely gave out beneath the weight of the next contraction, but Lucien caught me before I could ever hit the floor, his massive arms lifting me effortlessly against his chest. Vincent began roaring for an obstetrician, his deep voice bouncing off the hospital walls with a terrifying intensity that brought a dozen medical staff running toward us. Zane was already moving ahead, clearing out a private triage room, aggressively shouting down a resident who tried to ask for administrative paperwork.

The entire world blurred into a kaleidoscopic nightmare of glaring fluorescent lights and white coats. Doctors surrounded the gurney as Lucien gently laid me down.

"How many weeks along is she?" a frantic female voice shouted over the noise.

"What is her current pain threshold?" another nurse asked, ripping open a package of IV lines.

"Is there any visible hemorrhaging? Check for blood!"

I couldn't answer them properly. My mind was spinning out of control, a chaotic tempest of fear and adrenaline. This wasn't how the story was supposed to go. Not now. Not in the middle of a war. Not this incredibly early in the pregnancy.

Lucien leaned over the metal guardrail of the bed, his massive hands framing my face, gently forcing my frantic, tearing eyes to lock directly onto his dark, unyielding gaze. "Look at me, Sarah. Just look at me. Ignore the rest of the room."

I stared up at him, my vision swimming.

"Breathe, sweetheart. Just breathe through it," he commanded, his voice a steady, grounding anchor in the middle of the storm.

"Lucien, I’m not ready," I sobbed, a fresh wave of agony ripping through my abdomen, making my spine arch off the mattress. "It’s too early. I’m not ready for this."

His strong jaw tightened so hard I heard the bone click, his eyes boring into mine with a fierce, desperate intensity. "I know. I know you aren't."

"I'm so scared," I whimpered, the absolute vulnerability of the statement hanging heavily between us.

And for a fraction of a single second, something broke inside Lucien Voss. I saw it plain as day—a flicker of real, unadulterated, human fear piercing through his untouchable facade. He looked terrified. But just as quickly as it appeared, he swallowed it down, burying his own panic deep beneath the surface to be the strength I desperately needed.

"You are going to be completely fine, Sarah," he whispered fiercely, his thumb stroking my temple. "I am not letting anything happen to you or our daughter. Do you hear me?"

They began wheeling the stretcher down the hall at a frantic pace. Vincent was right beside my left shoulder, his large, calloused hand holding mine with a grip so fiercely tight it borderline crushed my fingers—and I welcomed the pain, using it to anchor myself to reality. Zane walked on my right, speaking to the chief of obstetrics at a terrifyingly rapid speed, demanding statistics, risks, and immediate countermeasures.

Ethan came sprinting down the adjacent hallway, having heard the commotion from Megan’s wing. His face was entirely devoid of color as he took in the sight of me hooked up to a mobile monitor. "What happened? What the hell is going on?"

Vincent looked up, his blue eyes dark. "Her water broke, Ethan. She’s in premature labor."

Ethan stumbled back a step, his breath hitching. "What?"

I started crying hysterically then, the tears burning my skin as the sheer emotional exhaustion of the last twenty-four hours finally broke my spirit. I couldn't stop it. Everything was crashing down on me all at once. Megan’s brutal kidnapping. The terrifying stalker messages. The faceless monster who wanted to steal my child. And now, my own body failing to protect the baby.

A sudden, violent wave of pure panic-induced nausea hit me. Amara instantly stepped forward, her calm, serene presence cutting through the noise as she gently gathered my hair back, holding a basin for me as I threw up. "It’s okay, Sarah. Just let it out. You’re alright."

"No, I’m not," I wept, wiping my mouth as another contraction rippled through my core. "It’s too early, Amara. She won't survive if she comes now."

The lead obstetrician finished a rapid internal examination, her face perfectly passive and unreadable—the universal sign that a doctor was trying not to panic their patient.

That stoic expression scared me more than anything else. "What is it?" I demanded, my voice rising in hysteria. "Tell me what’s happening!"

The doctor looked up, her gaze shifting between me and the three towering Voss brothers hovering over the bed. "The patient's system is under a catastrophic amount of acute psychological and physical stress. Her body is actively trying to expel the pregnancy as a trauma response."

Lucien’s expression darkened into a mask of pure, lethal malice. "No shit, Doctor. We know why it's happening. Tell us how you're going to fix it."

The physician completely ignored his threatening tone, keeping her focus entirely on me. "We need to immediately stop the labor progression. We need to administer high-dose tocolytics to relax the uterine muscles and buy us time for steroid shots to mature the baby's lungs."

I froze, the word echoing in my head. Labor. It made the entire nightmare entirely too real. Way too real. "Can we... can we actually stop it?"

She gave me a reassuring, firm nod. "We are going to try our absolute best, Sarah."

Try. That word almost killed me.

They rushed the gurney into a high-security private delivery suite, the heavy doors sealing out the rest of the hospital. In an instant, I was hooked up to a massive array of blinking machines, continuous fetal heart monitors, and multiple intravenous drips that burned like liquid fire as they entered my veins. I hated every single second of it. I hated the needles, I hated the rhythmic, mocking beep-beep-beep of the heart monitor, and I hated the terrifying vulnerability of the hospital gown.

But through every agonizing minute, nobody left my side.

Lucien stayed right at the head of the bed, his hand tangled in my hair. Vincent stayed, his broad shoulders leaning against the wall right beside my hand, his eyes never leaving my face. Zane stayed by the monitors, his analytical eyes watching every dip and spike in the contractions. Ethan stayed by the foot of the bed, his protective gaze an unyielding wall. Not a single one of them moved.

Hours dragged by like molasses. A continuous, exhausting cycle of sharp pain, suffocating fear, and agonizing waiting.

Then, finally, after what felt like an eternity, the lead doctor walked back into the room. This time, the clinical stiffness in her shoulders was gone, replaced by a softer, relieved expression.

"The magnesium sulfate has successfully halted the contractions," she announced, checking the printout from the monitor. "Your cervix hasn't dilated any further, and the fetal heart rate has completely stabilized at a healthy 145 beats per minute. The immediate danger has passed, Sarah. The baby is safe inside."

A massive, overwhelming sob of pure, unadulterated relief tore from my chest. I sank deep into the pillows, the phantom weight of the morning finally lifting off my lungs.

Lucien immediately leaned down, pressing a soft, lingering kiss directly to my sweaty forehead, his chest letting out a long, ragged breath. Vincent buried his handsome face into the side of my hair, his arms wrapping around my shoulders in a fierce embrace. Zane walked over, a rare, genuine smile tugging at the corner of his lips as he gently squeezed my hand, while Ethan looked like he was about to physically collapse onto the floor from sheer emotional exhaustion.

But before I could even draw a single, clean breath of relief—the heavy wooden door of the delivery suite was violently pushed open.

A young floor nurse stepped into the room. Her face was completely devoid of color, her eyes wide with a frantic, unvarnished panic that instantly made the air pressure in the room plummet to zero. She didn't look at Lucien, or Vincent, or Zane. She looked directly at me.

"Sarah," the nurse stammered, her voice shaking. "Your friend... Megan. The trauma team just stabilized her. She's awake in the post-op wing."

A spark of desperate hope hit my chest. "She’s awake? Can I see her?"

But the nurse didn't smile. She swallowed hard, her knuckles turning white as she clutched her medical chart against her chest, taking a fearful step back toward the hallway. "She... she is completely hysterical, Sarah. The sedatives aren't working. She keeps violently thrashing against the restraints, and she keeps repeating one single thing over and over again."

My heart tightened into a hard, painful knot, the monitor beside my bed instantly beginning to beep at a faster, erratic pace. "What? What is she saying?"

The nurse swallowed again, her voice dropping into a petrified whisper that echoed through the quiet room. "She says he’s here. In the hospital. Right now."

A cold, heavy, suffocating silence descended over the suite, the residual warmth of our relief completely vaporizing into ice.

I stared at her, my blood running entirely to liquid nitrogen. "Who? Who is here?"

And at that exact, terrifying moment—through the thin drywall of the private suite, echoing from the absolute end of the secure hallway, a piercing, primal scream shattered the quiet of the hospital.

It was Megan's voice. And she was screaming with a desperate, unhinged terror that made my soul violently shudder:

"GET HIM AWAY FROM HER! LUCIEN, VINCENT, GET HIM AWAY FROM SARAH!"