Chapter 2 - THREE HOURS TOO LATE
Z
Vincent discovered Sophia’s lie because of a security camera.
He didn’t yell when Luca showed him the footage.
That frightened everyone more.
At 1:06 a.m., they stood inside a private consultation room while the hospital video played on Luca’s phone.
Sophia stepped out of an elevator.
No limp.
No grimace.
Nothing.
She crossed the polished floor in four-inch heels while typing on her phone.
Vincent watched the clip twice.
Then a third time.
“When was this?”
“Eleven forty-seven,” Luca said.
Twenty minutes after Sophia had spent nearly an hour insisting that her ankle was too painful to walk.
Vincent’s face became unreadable.
“She stopped me from leaving.”
Luca said nothing.
Everyone working for Vincent understood that silence was sometimes the safest answer.
But Vincent looked at him.
“You told me to come here.”
“Yes.”
“And I told you Claire had doctors.”
“Yes.”
The words seemed to physically hurt him.
“What did you think?”
Luca hesitated.
Vincent’s voice dropped.
“Tell me.”
“I thought you were making a mistake.”
Vincent turned away.
A mistake.
Such a small word.
He had ordered men killed for mistakes that cost him less.
Yet the greatest mistake of his life had been committed without a gun, without blood, without an enemy standing across from him.
He had simply chosen the wrong woman.
Again.
And again.
And again.
The door opened twenty-seven minutes later.
Dr. Ramirez entered still wearing surgical scrubs.
Vincent stood immediately.
“Your wife survived surgery.”
His knees nearly failed.
“But?”
Doctors always had a but.
Dr. Ramirez removed his glasses.
“The hemorrhage was severe. We had to perform an emergency hysterectomy to stop the bleeding.”
Vincent frowned.
He understood the medical meaning a second later.
Claire would never carry another child.
The child she had nearly died delivering would be the only baby she ever gave birth to.
“Does she know?”
“No. She was unconscious before the procedure became necessary.”
Vincent stared at the floor.
He remembered something I had said four months earlier.
I wanted two.
We had been in the kitchen, my hand resting over my stomach while I looked at a website showing baby furniture.
Vincent had been reading financial reports.
“Two what?” he had asked.
“Children.”
He had barely looked up.
“One at a time, Claire.”
I had smiled anyway.
“A little girl first. Then maybe a boy.”
He had forgotten the conversation within minutes.
Now he remembered every word.
“What happens next?” he asked.
“She’ll be transferred to intensive care. The next twenty-four hours are critical.”
“And my daughter?”
“Stable for now. But she is premature. We need to monitor her lungs, heart, and oxygen levels closely.”
Vincent nodded.
“Can I see her?”
A nurse escorted him into the NICU.
For a man who commanded rooms without raising his voice, Vincent Moretti looked strangely lost standing beside an incubator.
His daughter was impossibly small.
Tiny fingers.
Tiny nose.
Tiny chest rising beneath wires and tubes.
He put one hand against the clear plastic.
“My God.”
Hannah stood behind him.
“She’s a fighter.”
Vincent swallowed.
“She looks like Claire.”
“She does.”
He lowered his head.
For several seconds, his forehead rested against the incubator.
“What’s her name?”
Hannah asked gently.
Vincent froze.
They hadn’t chosen one.
Because he had kept postponing the conversation.
Because there had always been another meeting.
Another problem.
Another phone call.
Another emergency involving Sophia.
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
Hannah’s expression softened slightly.
“Your wife called her Isabella while she was being stabilized.”
Vincent turned.
“Isabella?”
“She said she always liked that name.”
He whispered it.
“Isabella.”
His daughter moved one tiny hand.
That nearly destroyed him.
When Vincent finally left the NICU, Sophia was waiting outside the restricted doors.
“Vincent.”
He stopped.
Her ankle was wrapped in a bandage.
She was limping again.
For years, that voice had triggered his protective instincts.
Tonight, it made his skin crawl.
“I heard Claire is okay,” Sophia said quickly. “Thank God.”
Vincent stared at her ankle.
Sophia followed his gaze.
“The doctor said it’s probably just a sprain.”
“Take off your shoe.”
She blinked.
“What?”
“Take it off.”
“Vincent—”
“Now.”
Something in his tone made her obey.
There was no swelling.
No bruising.
Nothing.
Sophia’s face changed.
“I can explain.”
Vincent looked up slowly.
“You had me stay with you.”
“I was scared.”
“My wife’s heart stopped.”
“I didn’t know it was that serious.”
“My assistant told me she was critical.”
Sophia’s eyes filled with tears.
“You’re blaming me?”
“No.”
His answer shocked her.
Vincent stepped closer.
“I’m blaming myself.”
She relaxed slightly.
Then he continued.
“Because I was stupid enough to believe you.”
“Vincent—”
“You will not go near my wife.”
Sophia stared at him.
“You will not go near my daughter.”
Her mouth fell open.
“Your daughter?”
“Isabella.”
The way he said the name changed everything.
There was already possession in it.
Not the ugly possession with which he had treated our marriage.
Something deeper.
Fear.
Love.
Regret.
“You don’t mean that,” Sophia whispered.
Vincent’s expression became ice.
“If security sees you on this floor again, you’ll be removed.”
“You’ve known me since we were children.”
“And I married Claire.”
“You never loved her the way—”
“Stop.”
One word.
Sophia went silent.
Vincent moved closer until nobody could mistake the warning in his eyes.
“You don’t get to tell me how I loved my wife.”
Sophia’s lips trembled.
“Loved?”
Vincent looked toward the ICU doors.
The past tense hit him too.
He corrected himself immediately.
“Love.”
Then he walked away.
But Sophia did not leave the hospital.
She went downstairs, locked herself inside a restroom, and made a phone call.
The man who answered was not anyone Vincent knew she still spoke to.
“It went wrong,” she whispered.
A male voice responded.
“How wrong?”
“Claire survived.”
There was a long silence.
Then the man said, “That’s a problem.”
Sophia looked at herself in the mirror.
May you like
For the first time, she stopped pretending to cry.
“I know.”
