Chapter 117: Alice

The silence in the room wasn’t just quiet; it was heavy, suffocating, and thick enough to choke on.

Kian stood pinned against the back wall of the hospital room, his mouth open, his skin drained of every drop of color. He looked like a statue caught in the middle of a collapse.

"What...?" Kian whispered, his voice cracking so thin it barely made a sound. He blinked once, twice, his grey eyes wide and unseeing. "What did you just say?"

The chief surgeon kept his hands folded over the brown medical folder at the foot of the bed.

"I am sorry, Mr. Carter. The trauma from the crash was too severe. The internal bleeding..." The doctor let out a soft sigh, keeping his tone carefully even. "We could not save the pregnancy."

"No," Kian said instantly. He took a step forward, his foot dragging against the floor as if he had forgotten how to walk. "No, you’re wrong. You’re making a mistake."

"Mr. Carter—"

"She was pregnant!" Kian shouted, his sudden roar ripping through the quiet room. "She was carrying my child! You told me she was stable! You said she was going to be fine!"

"I said she was stable," the doctor corrected gently, stepping back slightly as Kian approached. "Her heart is beating. Her lungs are taking in air. But the child—"

"Save it!" Kian grabbed the doctor’s scrub top with one shaking hand, his knuckles turning white. "Do the surgery! Give her blood, use whatever machine you have, I don’t care how much it costs! Save my baby!"

"Kian."

The name didn’t come from the doctor. It came from the corner of the room.

Aaron hadn’t moved an inch from where he stood beside the bed. His face was cold, completely devoid of emotion, but his blue eyes were locked onto Kian’s trembling hands.

"Let go of him," Aaron said. His voice was low, flat, and chilling.

Kian didn’t let go. He looked at the doctor, his eyes desperate, bloodshot, and wild. "Tell me you can fix it. Tell me right now."

"There is nothing to fix, Mr. Carter," the doctor said, his voice dropping into a firm, sad reality. "The pregnancy has ended."

The words hit Kian like a physical blow. His hand slid off the doctor’s scrubs. He backed up until his spine slammed into the glass partition.

Ended.

It wasn’t just a child. It was the only leash he had left. The only legal knot, the only guilt, the only piece of leverage that could ever force Isabella Kingston to look at him, to sit in a room with him, to stay bound to his name. Gone. Torn out of her body in the middle of a rainstorm on a concrete bridge.

On the bed, Isabella lay motionless under the thin white blanket.

Tears were pouring silently from the corners of her green eyes, soaking into the fabric of her pillow.

She didn’t scream. She didn’t sob. Her chest just hitched once, twice, under the clear plastic oxygen mask, her hand still resting flat over her empty stomach.

Kian looked down at her. The sight of her crying, of her slipping away into a place he couldn’t reach, sent a sharp wave of panic straight into his chest.

"Isabella," he breathed, shuffling toward the side of the bed. He reached out his hand, his fingers twitching, desperate just to touch her skin, to grab her wrist, to feel her belong to him one last time. "Isabella, look at me. Look at me, please—"

Before his fingers could touch the blanket, a solid wall of heavy muscle stepped straight into his path.

Aaron blocked his view entirely.

"Get out of the way," Kian snarled, pushing his hand against Aaron’s chest. "She’s my wife! Let me touch my wife!"

Aaron didn’t budge. He grabbed Kian’s wrist in a grip so tight the bones groaned under the pressure. Aaron twisted Kian’s arm back, forcing him away from the bed with a slow, ruthless efficiency.

"She doesn’t want your hands on her," Aaron said into Kian’s ear, his voice barely above a whisper. "And you have spent enough time dragging her down with you."

"She’s mine. I’m her husband!" Kian screamed, losing his mind completely. He swung his free fist at Aaron’s head, but he was too disoriented, his balance ruined by grief and sheer exhaustion. Aaron blocked the strike easily with his elbow, grabbed Kian by the back of his soaked suit collar, and shoved him violently backward.

Kian stumbled across the room, slamming hard into the heavy wooden entrance door.

Before he could regain his footing, two of Aaron’s guards threw the door open from the outside. They grabbed Kian by both arms, hauling him out into the wide, brightly lit hallway.

"Let me go!" Kian thrashed against their grip, kicking his legs, his dark hair falling wildly over his bruised face. "Isabella! Isabella, tell them! Tell them to let me go!"

Inside the room, Isabella didn’t turn her head. She closed her eyes, letting the darkness take her, while the sound of Kian’s desperate, pathetic shouting faded down the corridor as the guards dragged him toward the elevators like a common nuisance.

Aaron stood in the center of the room until the hallway outside fell dead silent. Then, he turned back to the bed.

He pulled a wooden chair close, sat down beside her, and gently took her cold, trembling hand into his own. He didn’t speak. He just sat there, holding her fingers while she wept into the quiet air.

Out in the road, the hospital doors slammed open as Kian was dumped onto the wet concrete of the driveway.

He didn’t hit the guards back. He didn’t order his men to shoot them. He just stood there under the sun, his breath coming in ragged, ugly gasps, his suit completely ruined.

The grief in his chest didn’t stay as sorrow. It mutated instantly into a hot, poison fury that burned up his throat and lit his head on fire.

He didn’t walk to his car; he sprinted to it. He threw himself into the driver’s seat, slammed the door shut, and hit the gas so hard the tires spun out in a cloud of white smoke before gripping the road.

He didn’t think about speed limits. He didn’t think about the police. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the doctor’s face. He saw the empty bed. He saw the end of his life.

Alice.