Chapter 4

Aleida POV

The air in the ballroom felt suffocating, heavy and stifling.

Else suddenly clutched her stomach. She let out a small, pathetic whimper.

"Derek," she gasped. "I don't feel well."

Derek was on his feet instantly, his chair scraping loudly against the floor, drawing eyes to our table.

"What's wrong?" he asked, panic pitching his voice high.

"I feel... dizzy," she whispered, leaning heavily into him.

He wrapped his arm around her waist protectively. "We're leaving. Now."

He looked at me. He hesitated. His eyes darted from Else's pale face to my stoic one.

He opened his mouth, maybe to tell me to come with them, maybe to apologize.

But then Else leaned up and whispered in his ear.

"Don't worry about her," she hissed. "She's just a tool. Remember the plan."

I heard it.

I was sitting right there, and she didn't even care if I heard.

Derek's face hardened. The hesitation vanished.

He turned his back on me.

"Let's go," he said to Else.

He walked away. He left his pregnant wife alone at a gala to take his mistress home.

I sat there for a moment, staring at the empty space where he had been.

Then, Else came back.

She walked up to the table. She wasn't sick. She was smiling.

"Did you really think he'd stay?" she asked.

She reached into her purse and pulled out a ring box. She opened it.

It was the ring. The one with her name on it.

"He gave it to me last night," she said. "He said it belongs on the finger of the woman he actually respects."

She snapped the box shut.

"Come on," she said, grabbing my wrist.

"What?" I tried to pull away.

"Derek wants you home," she said, her grip like iron. "We can't have you making a scene."

She dragged me out of the ballroom. I tried to resist, but she was surprisingly strong, and I was afraid of hurting the baby if I fought too hard.

She shoved me into the passenger seat of her car.

She drove like a maniac. We were tearing down the highway, weaving in and out of traffic.

"You know," she said, glancing at me, "you really helped me out. Keeping his bed warm while I was gone."

"Stop it," I said, closing my eyes.

"He told me everything," she laughed. "How pathetic you were. How you begged for his attention. He said sleeping with you was a chore."

I stayed silent. My silence was the only weapon I had left.

It made her furious.

"Say something!" she screamed.

She yanked the steering wheel.

The car swerved. We hit the guardrail.

Metal screamed against metal. The world flipped upside down.

Pain exploded in my body.

I felt the seatbelt dig into my chest. I felt my head slam against the window.

And then, the worst pain of all. A sharp, tearing cramp in my lower abdomen.

I felt warmth spreading between my legs.

No. No, no, no.

Darkness started to creep into the edges of my vision.

I heard sirens. I felt hands pulling me out of the wreckage.

The next thing I knew, I was on a gurney. The lights of the hospital hallway were blinding.

Derek was there. He was running alongside the gurney.

But he wasn't looking at me. He was looking at the other gurney. At Else.

"Doctor!" someone yelled. "We're losing the fetal heartbeat!"

Derek stopped. He looked at me then.

"Aleida?" he whispered.

"Save the baby!" I screamed. It took every ounce of strength I had. "Derek, save the baby!"

The doctor looked at Derek. "Sir, we have a complication. We can focus on saving the pregnancy, or we can stabilize your wife. And your sister... she needs immediate surgery too. We don't have enough hands for both traumas right now. Who is the priority?"

It was a chaotic, impossible moment. But the question hung in the air.

Derek looked at me. I was bleeding. I was begging him with my eyes.

Then he looked at Else. She was moaning, a small cut on her forehead.

He didn't hesitate.

"Help Else," he said. "Make sure she's okay."

"But the baby..." the doctor started.

"I don't care about the baby!" Derek shouted. "Just save Else!"

The words hit me harder than the car crash.

He chose her. He chose her over his own child.

He let go of my hand.

He turned and followed Else's gurney into the operating room.

I watched his back retreat.

The darkness rushed in then. It swallowed me whole.

But before I went under, I made a promise to the empty air.

If I survive this, I thought, as the anesthesia took hold.

You will wish you had died in that crash, Derek.