Chapter 4

The man in the suit gestured for Alois to roll down his window. Before a real confrontation could start, another man, older and clearly in charge, stepped out of the lead SUV.

"Let them pass," the older man said curtly. The guard immediately stepped aside.

Alois didn't waste a second. He floored it, speeding past the convoy. In his rush, he didn't hear the older man say to his subordinate, "Find out who that was. Mr. Burris won't want any loose ends."

A bystander on the sidewalk recognized the older man. "That's Marcus Thorne, Kaeden Burris's right-hand man," he muttered to his friend. "Wonder what's going on."

I had already passed out again, slumped against the seat. The world was a blur of red-tinged pain.

Alois drove like a madman, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. He kept glancing at me, his face a mixture of fear and determination.

We screeched to a halt at the emergency entrance of the city's most exclusive private hospital. The entrance was dark. No nurses, no orderlies. Just an empty, silent driveway.

"Hello?!" Alois yelled, getting out of the car. "I have a critical injury here! I need a doctor!"

Finally, a set of doors slid open and a group of doctors and nurses rushed out, their faces frantic.

"We have a VIP patient in critical condition!" one of them, a man with a nametag that read Dr. Gates, said impatiently. "We don't have time for..."

His voice trailed off as he saw me in Alois's arms. His professional demeanor shifted. A strange, almost hungry look entered his eyes.

"What happened to her?" Dr. Gates asked, his tone suddenly sharp and focused.

"She was in an accident," Alois said, carrying me towards them. "She's pregnant. She's bleeding badly. You have to save her."

"We need you to sign a consent form," a nurse said, thrusting a clipboard at Alois. He scribbled his name without even reading it.

They lifted me onto a gurney. The rough movement and the cold metal against my torn skin shocked me back to a sliver of consciousness.

"Please," I gasped, grabbing Dr. Gates's sleeve. "My baby... save my baby..."

He looked down at me, his eyes cold and clinical. "We'll do what we can." He ordered a nurse, "Get a blood sample, now. We need to check her type and run a full panel. Rush it to the lab."

Another nurse took a pair of surgical scissors and cut away the blood-soaked fabric of my dress. The air hit my exposed wound, and I cried out in pain.

I tried to fight, to push them away, but my body wouldn't obey. My limbs felt like lead.

A moment later, the nurse with my blood sample returned, her eyes wide. She handed a printout to Dr. Gates.

He scanned it, and a triumphant, chilling smile spread across his face. "It's a perfect match," he said, his voice filled with a disturbing excitement. "It's a goddamn miracle."

"A match for what?" I managed to whisper, my blood turning to ice.

Dr. Gates looked at me as if I were a slab of meat. "A match for our VIP patient. She's in desperate need of a new heart and kidneys. We've been searching for a donor for months."

The world tilted on its axis. My husband wasn't just trying to kill me. He was delivering me to be parted out like a stolen car.

"Kaeden," I breathed, the name a curse on my lips. "He did this."

"Mr. Burris is a very generous man," Dr. Gates said with a sick smile. "He's funding our entire new surgical wing. And he's willing to pay any price to save the woman he loves."

The pain in my body was nothing compared to the agony that ripped through my soul. He was killing me and our child to save Clemmie.

A sharp, searing pain shot through my abdomen as one of the nurses injected something into my IV. My body convulsed. The heart monitor beside the gurney began to shriek, the beeps growing faster, more frantic.

"We're losing her!" a nurse shouted.

"It doesn't matter," Dr. Gates said calmly, picking up a scalpel. "We have what we need. Prep her for immediate organ harvesting."

My last sensation was the cold steel of his blade pressing against my skin. My last thought was of my baby, a child who would never draw a single breath.

Then the monitor flatlined into a single, unending tone.

Nothing.