Chapter 3 - The Secret Exposed
Then, the young trauma resident jammed an ultrasound probe deep into the hollow of my bruised abdomen. The doctor didn't look at the feared boss standing in the doorway; she stared intensely at the flickering monitor screen. Her eyes went wide with shock, and she screamed toward the open hallway: ""Hold compressions! We have a live fetus!"" The entire room went dead silent, the blaring monitors suddenly sounding like background noise to the revelation that dropped like a tactical bomb inside Trauma Room 4.
""Approximately thirty-two weeks! Fetal bradycardia, sixty beats per minute! Placental abruption in progress!"" The resident’s voice cracked with pure adrenaline. ""Mother is crashing! Call OB right now! We need an emergency perimortem section if we lose her!"" The world inside the room shattered into jagged pieces. Vivienne’s hand slipped completely from Mateo’s arm. Her mouth fell open in horror, her eyes dropping from my battered face down to the swollen curve my cut clothes had finally exposed.
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Mateo took one staggering step forward. The color did not just leave his face; it was violently ripped out of him, turning his skin the shade of wet concrete. The man who had survived assassinations, street wars, and federal grand juries without flinching looked like his soul had been hollowed out. ""Pregnant,"" he choked out. It was the first time in my life I had ever heard raw, trembling terror strip every shred of authority from his voice. His ice-blue eyes locked onto my swollen belly, then darted to the monitor where a tiny, frantic heartbeat flickered just above my failing one.
Eight months. I had walked out of his mansion eight months and one week ago. The math hit him like a physical blow to the chest. ""Elena,"" he gasped, lunging toward my bed with wild, bloodshot eyes. ""Elena, whose—"" The cardiac monitor answered him before I could form a breath. The frantic double-meter beep abruptly collapsed into one single, continuous, merciless scream: BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP. A flatline. ""V-fib!"" the resident screamed, leaping onto the stepstool and throwing her hands down onto my sternum. ""Charge to two hundred! Get this bastard out of my room right now!"" Mateo lunged for the edge of the gurney, his knuckles turning ghost-white against the chrome rail as the feral monster inside him broke loose. ""That baby is mine!"" Mateo roared, fighting off two hospital guards. ""Elena, look at me! THAT BABY IS MINE!""
