Part 2
The world around me became strangely quiet.
The hospital sounds faded.
The footsteps.
The voices.
The machines.
Everything disappeared except one sentence repeating inside my head.
She was pregnant.
Emma was pregnant.
And she had been alone.
For eight months, while I believed she betrayed me, she had carried my child without me.
A nurse rushed past me.
“Doctor, fetal heartbeat is stable, but the mother’s condition is critical.”
Mother.
The word hit harder than any bullet.
Emma was not some enemy.
She was the woman I promised to protect.
The woman I swore I would never hurt.
And I had done exactly that.
Brooke stepped closer.
“Vincent, don’t let this manipulate you.”
I turned slowly.
“What?”
She shrugged.
“She always knew how to get your attention.”
My eyes narrowed.
“You knew?”
Her smile disappeared.
“Knew what?”
“That she was pregnant.”
Silence.
Only for a moment.
But it was enough.
I knew.
Brooke knew.
She had known everything.
“You told me she was dangerous,” I said quietly.
“She was.”
“No.”
My voice dropped.
“She was never dangerous.”
Brooke’s expression hardened.
“She was going to destroy you.”
I stared at her.
The woman who had stood beside me for eight months.
The woman who claimed she loved me.
And suddenly, every strange detail I ignored came rushing back.
The missing messages.
The altered files.
The people who suddenly turned against Emma.
The way Brooke always appeared when I was angry.
She had never been protecting me.
She had been controlling me.
Behind the glass, Emma suddenly moved.
Barely.
Her eyes opened.
And they found me.
For a second, neither of us moved.
I saw everything in her expression.
Pain.
Betrayal.
And something worse.
She looked at me like she had already accepted that I was the last person she wanted to see.
“Emma,” I whispered.
Her lips moved.
I stepped closer to the glass.
Trying to understand.
Then she mouthed one word.
“Why?”
My heart shattered.
May you like
Because I had no answer.
Not one that could undo what I had done.
