At 10:03 p.m., exactly ninety-three days after Luke Mercer ended his marriage, St. Catherine’s Medical Center called with news that shattered every lie he had built around himself.
“Mr. Mercer, your former wife collapsed downtown thirty minutes ago,” the nurse explained carefully. “She’s unconscious, severely malnourished, and approximately sixteen weeks pregnant.”
The silence afterward felt violent.
Luke stood alone beside the massive windows of his Tribeca penthouse while Manhattan flickered beneath the rain like a city drowning in electricity and secrets.
Pregnant.
The word hollowed his chest instantly.
Because Elena Ross had not touched another man.
Not before the divorce.
Not during it.
And definitely not after the night he destroyed her life with his own mouth.
Marco Reyes watched him from the doorway quietly. “Boss?”
Luke grabbed his coat without blinking. “Get the car.”
The drive to St. Catherine’s took eleven minutes, though Luke remembered none of it. Every traffic light looked red through the storm-streaked windows like warning signs from God.
When they entered the hospital, nurses immediately recognized the dangerous stillness surrounding Luke Mercer. Wealth made people noticed. Power made people nervous. But fear created silence.
“I’m here for Elena Ross,” Luke said coldly.
The receptionist glanced down awkwardly. “Relationship to patient?”
He should have answered honestly.
Instead, something darker answered first.
“She’s my wife.”
The woman hesitated. “Records indicate divorced.”
Luke stepped closer. “Room.”
“Three-forty-seven.”
Marco followed behind him through fluorescent corridors smelling of antiseptic, wilted flowers, exhaustion, and midnight regret.
Luke pushed open the ICU door and stopped breathing.
Elena looked painfully thin beneath the hospital blanket, as if heartbreak itself had physically consumed pieces of her over the last three months.
Her beautiful dark hair spread across the pillow carelessly. Bruises marked her wrist. IV needles pierced both arms. Her lips looked cracked from dehydration.
But her hand rested protectively over the slight curve beneath the blanket.
Their baby.
Luke felt sick instantly.
Three months earlier, he had looked Elena directly in the eyes and told her she was impossible to love anymore.
Now she carried his child alone while starving herself into unconsciousness.
Dr. Avery Bennett entered moments later carrying a chart thick with alarming numbers and terrible possibilities.
“You’re Mr. Mercer?”
“Yes.”
The doctor removed her glasses slowly. “Your ex-wife hasn’t been taking care of herself. Severe anemia, dehydration, dangerously low blood pressure, and extreme stress complications.”