Chapter 66 The Sad News

Chapter 66 The Sad News
Alexander's POV

I stare at him. My ears are ringing.

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice low. “You lost the baby.”

I blink. Once. Twice.

No sound comes out of me.

Just that sharp, clean snap of something breaking open inside my chest.

I turn slowly, looking back at Ivy. She still hasn’t moved.

Her skin is still pale. She doesn’t even know.

I walk to her bedside, like I’m on fucking autopilot. Sit down. Stare at the curve of her cheek, the lashes that lie too still against her bruised skin.

I place a hand on her stomach again. But this time, there’s nothing underneath.

No flutter. No flicker. Just silence.

I swallow back the roar rising in my throat. A primal, shattering sound that wants to tear out of me and level this whole fucking building.

I close my eyes and press my forehead to her stomach. Again. One last time.

“Fuck,” I whisper. My voice shakes. “I’m sorry, baby. I couldn’t protect you. I—”

The door creaks again.

Jess. She doesn’t say anything this time. She just stands there and watches me.

And I know she knows. She always knows.

I can’t look at her. I can’t even breathe.

So I sit there and I hold the woman I love, and I mourn the child I never got to meet. The life that was taken before it ever had a chance to start.

And for the first time in years—

I cry.

Not loud. Not messy. Just a single fucking tear that slips past my defenses and falls onto the thin cotton of her gown.

I brush it away before it soaks in. Like it never happened.

Because when Ivy wakes up…

I need to be strong. I need to be steel. I need to be the man who holds her through it.

And tells her—

Our baby is gone.

Ivy’s POV

Hospital Room – Three days later

The world returns in fragments. Light. Pain. Beeping. Cold.

My eyes blink open slowly like dragging a rusted door off its hinges. Everything hurts. My ribs ache like I’ve been crushed. My throat is dry, raw, like I’ve swallowed fire. My mouth tastes like cotton and metal.

And then—

I feel him. Warmth. Weight. Fingers tangled with mine.

Alexander.

He’s asleep in the chair beside me, his head bowed forward, chin resting against his chest. His shirt is wrinkled. There’s stubble dark on his jaw. His hand is still wrapped around mine like he never let go.

God. He looks… destroyed.

My stomach twists. Then something else twists.

Something lower.

A sharp, aching pull in my abdomen. A weight where there should be more.

I freeze. Panic ripples through me in a silent scream.

My hand jerks beneath his, and he jolts awake instantly like a soldier under attack.

“Ivy.” His voice is thick, hoarse, like he hasn’t spoken in hours. Or has screamed until his throat bled. He’s suddenly towering over me, one hand cradling my cheek, the other smoothing hair back from my face like he’s afraid I’ll disappear. “Baby. Fuck—baby girl, you’re awake.”

I try to speak. Nothing comes out.

His eyes roam over me, desperate. “Do you know where you are?”

I blink. Nod.

He exhales, shaky. One of his hands presses to my forehead, his lips graze my knuckles.

And then I ask the only question that matters.

“The baby?”

His face changes. It shatters.

A breath punches out of him like he’s been stabbed. His jaw locks. His fingers tremble.

“Alexander,” I whisper, heart thundering. “What happened? Is our baby okay?”

He doesn’t answer right away.

He sits beside me slowly, like his bones are heavy with grief. His hand slides down to my stomach—but not in the way it used to. There’s no protective touch, no soft caress.

Just… stillness. And then he meets my eyes.

Dark. Haunted. Raw.

And I know. I fucking know.

“No,” I breathe. My voice breaks, tears burning like acid down my temples. “No, no, please—don’t—don’t say it—”

His arms wrap around me before I can collapse. His chest is warm and hard and trembling. He holds me like I’m glass that’s already cracked.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs into my hair, kissing the top of my head over and over. “I’m so fucking sorry, Ivy. I couldn’t stop it. I tried. I was here—I never left—but the doctor—he said it was too much. Your body…”

My scream rips through the silence. Pain tears through my chest like lightning.

Our baby. Gone.

I clutch his shirt with both hands, sobbing into his chest, fists pounding against him until they go limp. My heart feels like it’s being ripped out of my body. The grief is sharp. Sudden. Violent.

Alexander never lets go.

He doesn’t flinch. He just holds me, lets me break, lets me bleed all over his heart.

“I loved her already,” I whisper through the wreckage of my voice. “I didn’t even know who she was, and I loved her so much.”

“I know, sweetheart,” he breathes, kissing my forehead, my cheek, my tear-soaked lips. “I did too. I still do. I will forever.”

We sit there, drowning in the silence. The machines keep beeping.

The nurses pass the door like ghosts.

And inside this little hospital room, we mourn the tiniest soul that never got a chance.

Eventually, I curl into his lap, weak, exhausted. His fingers stroke my back in long, slow circles. He doesn’t say anything more. He doesn’t have to.

Because I know. I know if it were possible—if he could trade places, reverse time, bring her back—

He would burn the world to ash.

To Be Continued…