Chapter 1 - The Diagnosis
Dr. Mercer looked down at the ultrasound monitor, her fingers moving with practiced ease over the trackball. The quiet hum of the machine filled the room, punctuated only by the rhythmic, heavy breathing of Dorian Cross standing near the door. He hadn't sat down once. His tall frame cast a long, imposing shadow across the sterile room, hand resting near the button of his suit jacket—a posture born of years of constant vigilance.
"Well, Mrs. Cross," Dr. Mercer said, her voice soft and composed. "Your carsickness has a name."
She turned the small screen toward us. On the dark display, amidst shadows of grey, a tiny flickering pulse fluttered like the wings of a trapped hummingbird.
"You are eight weeks pregnant," Dr. Mercer continued, looking over her reading glasses at Dorian, whose face had turned entirely to stone. "And the baby's heartbeat is remarkably strong."
The air left my lungs in a single, painful gasp. Eight weeks. Eight weeks ago, during the brief, storm-plagued weekend at his private lodge in Aspen—the last time he had touched me before the coldness truly set in, before the sudden wall of security guards and brief, cold phone calls erected a fortress between us.
I looked at Dorian, expecting the icy detachment he had worn for the past six months. Instead, his dark eyes were wide, fixed on the tiny flickering light on the screen. His jaw worked silently. For a split second, the terrifying, unyielding sovereign of Chicago looked entirely undone.
"Eight weeks," Dorian repeated, the words gravelly and thick. He stepped toward the bed, his polished shoes silent on the linoleum, and extended a hand toward my shoulder before catching himself and pulling it back. "Is she healthy? Is the baby safe?"
"Her vitals are low due to severe dehydration and stress," Dr. Mercer answered, writing notes on her tablet. "She needs immediate rest, proper nutrition, and absolute freedom from physical or emotional strain. Whatever you two are going through outside this room, it stops now."
Dorian pulled his phone from his coat pocket, dialed a single digit, and placed it to his ear without breaking eye contact with me.
"Caleb," Dorian commanded, his voice dropping an octave into the lethal tone that made full-grown syndicate leaders tremble. "Tell Mr. Vance that the divorce proceedings are permanently terminated. Tell him if he ever drafts another contract with my wife's name on it, I will burn his firm to the ground. Then lock down the estate. Nobody enters. Nobody leaves."
He hung up before his chief of security could answer.
"You can't do that," I whispered, my voice trembling as tears finally spilled over my eyelashes. "You gave up on us six months ago, Dorian! You pushed me out! You sent lawyers to my apartment! You don't get to claim me just because my body remembered what you chose to forget!"
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Dorian leaned down, placing both hands on the edge of the examination table, trapping me in his space. The scent of cedarwood, expensive tobacco, and rain enveloped me—a scent that had meant safety for five years, and heart-wrenching agony for six months.
"I didn't push you away because I stopped loving you, Alina," he whispered, his eyes blazing with a dark, desperate fire that chilled me to the bone. "I pushed you away because six months ago, somebody put a price on your head. And if they find out you're carrying my heir, this city will burn before I let them touch you."
