Chapter 89 89
Elliot’s POV
I was in the middle of a macroeconomics class when my phone vibrated in my pocket. The professor had been talking for nearly an hour, drawing demand elasticity graphs on the board and explaining something about price sensitivity.
My notebook was open in front of me, pen between my fingers, gaze lost out the window while I thought about anything but economics.
The vibration came again.
I pulled the phone out discreetly, tilting it under the desk so the professor wouldn’t see. I looked at the screen.
Katherine.
Her name glowed there.
My heart lurched so violently I almost gasped.
A small, private smile formed on my lips.
I answered quietly, covering the microphone with my hand.
“Kate?”
Her voice came through broken.
Between short breaths.
With noise in the background: sirens, voices, movement.
“Elliot… I’m in an ambulance. On the way to the hospital.”
The classroom vanished.
It wasn’t gradual. It simply ceased to exist. The professor, the students, the papers on the desk—everything blurred into irrelevant background noise.
“What hospital?” I asked, already standing.
My backpack hit the floor as I grabbed the phone and keys in one motion.
“Central… Central General,” she said.
I memorized the name before she finished.
I hung up without goodbye.
I left the classroom without looking back. I heard the professor say something, but I didn’t stop. I ran down the hallway, shoving the door open with my shoulder. A couple of students stepped aside as I nearly sprinted past them.
I took the stairs three at a time.
While running toward the parking lot, I was already dialing numbers.
“Prepare the helicopter,” I said without greeting. “Now.”
“Mr. Elliot, we need confirmation—”
“Now.”
I hung up before they could respond.
The second call was to the pilot.
“Land on the campus helipad,” I ordered as I unlocked the car. “Five minutes.”
“I’m seven out,” he replied.
“Make it five.”
I started the car before he finished speaking. The engine roared as I floored the accelerator and peeled out of the parking lot too fast, crossing the avenue around campus with my eyes locked on the road.
The phone vibrated in my hand. Messages from the service asking for confirmations, coordinates, permissions. I didn’t reply. I just sent a quick location pin.
The campus helipad was at the north end, near the sports fields. When I rounded the last curve, I already heard the deep thrum of rotors cutting the air.
The helicopter was there.
The pilot saw me coming and opened the side door before the car even fully stopped.
I jumped out without turning off the engine. I ran the last meters as the downdraft from the blades kicked up dust and loose papers from the ground.
“Central General,” I shouted as I climbed in.
The pilot was already settling his headset.
“Twenty minutes if the airspace is clear.”
“No more—I need to get there as fast as possible!”
I threw myself into the seat as the helicopter began to lift. I hadn’t buckled yet when the ground started falling away. The campus shrank beneath us, buildings reducing to gray blocks among trees.
I checked the phone again.
No new messages from Katherine.
I pictured her inside that ambulance, pale, hands on her belly.
The baby.
Our baby.
The helicopter cut across the city while the pilot spoke over the radio requesting landing clearance at the hospital. I was nervous. Hands braced on my knees, fingers tense, eyes fixed on the horizon where the downtown buildings began to appear.
“Two minutes,” the pilot said finally.
The hospital appeared below us, a white structure with the helipad marked in red on the roof.
The rotors slowed as we descended.
The helicopter touched down.
Before it fully stopped, I was already opening the door.
I jumped onto the hospital roof and ran toward the metal door leading inside the building.
The baby.
Only one thought in my head as I raced down the emergency stairs toward the ER.
I had to get there. She needed me.
I called Kate while descending the stairwell.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“Still in emergency,” she answered. “They haven’t taken me to a room yet.”
Her voice sounded weak, worn, as if every word cost her effort. I didn’t wait. I hung up without goodbye and kept moving through the ER hallway, phone still in hand. The hospital was a maze of automatic doors, white lights, and people hurrying past without looking at anyone.
“Obstetric observation!” I asked the first nurse who passed me.
She pointed toward the end of the hallway without stopping.
I pushed through one door, then another. Passed an area full of curtained gurneys. Some women breathed heavily, others spoke with doctors. Everything was motion, noise, urgency.
And then I found her.
Katherine lay on an observation gurney, skin pale, hair stuck to her forehead with sweat. Her hands rested on her belly as if trying to hold something inside. A doctor stood beside her checking a monitor while asking questions.
I didn’t think. I crossed the distance in three strides and leaned over her.
I kissed her without asking permission—instinctive, urgent, as if I needed to touch her to make sure she was still there.
“I’m here,” I murmured against her mouth.
Katherine looked up at me with wide eyes, surprised, but she didn’t pull away.
The doctor glanced up at me, expression confused.
“Are you the father?”
“Yes,” I answered without hesitation. “I’m the father.”
I felt Katherine’s body tense under my hand, but she said nothing. She didn’t contradict me. The doctor nodded as if that settled any administrative doubt.
“She’s in labor,” the doctor said while checking the monitor and palpating her abdomen with practiced movements. “Contractions are regular, and dilation is already at three centimeters.”
The world went too quiet for a second.
Katherine lifted her head sharply.
“No…” she whispered. “It can’t be. There are still a couple of weeks left.”
The doctor didn’t look away from the monitor screen.
“That was the expected date,” he replied with professional calm. “But babies don’t always follow the schedule.” He finished noting something on his tablet and then looked directly at her. “I need to know if anything happened recently that could have triggered this early. Any major physical exertion? Severe stress? Any falls?”
Katherine shook her head.
“No…”
The doctor frowned slightly.
“Recent sexual activity?” The question landed heavily in the room. “Sometimes it can stimulate the uterus in late pregnancy and cause premature contractions.”
She lowered her gaze. Her fingers moved nervously over the hospital gown fabric.
She didn’t answer.
I took her hand. My fingers closed around hers and laced them calmly.
“Has something happened?” I asked quietly.
Katherine avoided my eyes. She bit her lower lip in that gesture I knew too well. I lifted my other hand and gently held her face, forcing her to look at me.
“Are you okay?” I insisted.
There was something in her expression that wasn’t just fear.
It was shame.
Shame… and guilt.
Understanding hit me like a blow—clear and brutal.
Andrew.
She’d been with Andrew. Recently. Her body was still responding to that, and the stress had pushed the pregnancy to the edge.
Rage rose in my throat like acid. Silent, hot rage that settled behind my teeth.
But I didn’t show it.
I smiled.
A calm, almost kind smile.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
The doctor finished checking the monitor and stepped back.
“I’ll be back in a bit.”
When he left, the space between us fell silent.
Katherine slowly withdrew her hand from mine.
“I didn’t want to bother you,” she said finally. “But Andrew wasn’t answering.”
“It’s not a bother,” I replied. “That baby is mine. And I want to be here when he’s born.”
She shook her head.
“No. Andrew will be here. We still don’t know if he’s yours—don’t say that. I don’t want… you to get your hopes up and then it turns out otherwise.”
I looked at her for a long second.
Then I stood without saying anything.
I left the room and walked down the hallway until I found a quiet spot. I pulled out my phone and dialed Andrew’s number.
No answer.
I called again.
Nothing.
Then I dialed his office.
A female voice answered.
“This is Elliot Martins,” I said. “Find Andrew Ellis and put him on. It’s urgent.”
The line went quiet for a few seconds.
Then I heard his voice.
“Elliot?”
“Andrew,” I replied calmly. “Remember that meeting with the Koreans?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I want you to go to Korea as soon as possible. In person. Today if possible. It’s important.”
There was a brief silence on the other end.
“Elliot… I’m in a meeting right now. And—”
“I thought it sounded important when you told me about it,” I interrupted. “Why hesitate on an opportunity like this? The Koreans don’t wait. Leave immediately. I’m sending the private jet. It’ll be ready in an hour.”
I hung up.
I returned to the room.
Katherine was still on the gurney. Pale. Exhausted. Scared.
Her phone rested on the small table beside the bed.
I picked it up naturally.
I turned it off.
I slipped it into my jacket pocket.
Katherine was mine.
And it was time she started to understand that.
When that labor progressed, when that child was born in this hospital…
Andrew wouldn’t be there.
I would.