Chapter 102 Chapter 102
Dominic Pov
I was still sitting in my office, leaning back into my chair. My eyes drifted over the ceiling, trying to unravel the restlessness gnawing beneath my skin when my phone buzzed on the table beside me.
I thought it was a normal call at first, not until I saw the name. Or rather, the number. It was a number that always spoke of trouble.
It was Liana. My chest tightened. I looked at the screen for a fraction of a second more than I should have trying to decide what to do. And then I picked.
"Hello?"
Her voice sounded from across the line, rough at the edges. It hit me like a punch to the gut.
“ I need you to assist me. It concerns Lee." She said without even exchanging pleasantries. I sat straight up, all the muscles in my body tightening. "Lee?"
"She's in the hospital," she whispered, her voice barely holding together. "It's bad and she needs a transfusion. They say it has to be from the father since mine doesn't match."
My heart plummeted. "Where are you?"
"St. James Medical."
"I'm on my way."
I didn't wait a second longer. The phone went flying from my hand as I rose to my feet. I didn't inform or speak to anyone. I just grabbed the keys and rushed off..
I did not rely on anyone else to get me there in time either. If I was to reach out to my driver, he would need another fifteen minutes to be here since he was on break so I drove myself. The city flew by in a blur of red lights and horns that I barely heard. I couldn't concentrate on anything else. Everything just slipped away and left me with the image of a little girl with big eyes and a wide smile. A little girl I had been denied access to in the last few months. A little girl I didn't even know existed until the last few months.
My daughter.
I should have been there from the beginning. But I had worked so many years creating walls, choosing pride, choosing anger that I didn't even see that my then wife had been pregnant and even had a child. Now, it was all for nothing. Nothing.
I took a turn so fast, I almost hit a street post, but I didn't care. I stormed into the hospital and yelled my name at the front desk. A nurse pointed me toward the pediatrics wing.
The halls felt longer than they looked. Every step felt like the echo of my own heartbeat. My eyes scanned around and finally it landed on the one person I had been searching for.
Liana sat on a bench outside a hospital room. Her head was lowered and her hands shaking. When she saw me, the weight in her eyes caused me to stand still.
She looked defeated, tired and so horribly afraid.
"She's in there," she said, her voice coarse.
I walked towards the glass and looked in. She was so small. Her skin as white as the sheets she rested on. Tubes and IVs inserted into her thin body. My knees nearly gave way.
I shoved my hand against the glass, burning eyes.
And then a nurse appeared. "Are you the father?"
"Yes," I said, low and even. "Test me. Do what you have to… just save her.".
I followed them without hesitation. The nurse led me from the corridor to a room where they quickly tested my blood. My head spun, but I did not move. I remembered her voice. I had only heard it once, that day at the park. But ever since then, it had lingered with me.
When they informed me that I was a match, I hardly nodded at them. I just needed the job done. "Hook me up," I said.
I watched the red pour out of my body. It was surreal, and appalling. But it was also the most focused I'd been in years. This singular act of giving my blood for my child felt somewhat fulfilling.
I waited, depleted beyond the physical level, following the transfusion. Liana sat down next to me, silent initially.
"I should have told you," she said eventually.
"You should have," I told her, not with anger, but something else. "But right now, I don't care. She's all that matters."
She looked up at me, something unreadable in her eyes. I turned back to her, fully, the weight of everything falling.
“And now that I have done that," I said to her. "whatever happens in court, good or bad, I want joint custody. I want to be a part of her life, Liana. No longer behind the scenes. No longer in the shadows. She is mine, too."
Her lips parted, just a bit. She didn't protest or fight. .
"I know…" she whispered. "But I need to think about it, giving her blood doesn't make up for the years lost."
I looked at her for a very, very long time completely speechless.
“You know what I want, just give it to me.”
………
The next few hours were a whirl of doctors dashing in and out, checking the monitors, nurses readjusting tubes and lines. At one point, they told us that she was stable, just sleeping.
I stood outside her room and watched her sleep. She looked better already. Color was returning to her cheeks and her chest rose and fell in soft, regular rhythms.
I took a deep breath, my hand against the glass again. "I'm going to make this right," I wispered to her even though she couldn't hear me. "I promise you, Lee. I won't let you go away from me again."
Liana stood behind me, standing in silence with her arms crossed tight over her chest and slowly, I turned to her.
"I want to know everything from now," I told her. “No more keeping me in the dark or keeping yourself in the dark. We owe it to her to tell the truth."
Liana just stood staring at me without saying a word and I realised I was saying too much so I let it be. At least, we had crossed the first phase.
We stood there, shoulder to shoulder, two people with too many wounds and not enough time. But at least now… now we had a reason to keep fighting forward together.
And her name was Lee.