“Turn off the epidural.”
Those four words shattered the last illusion I still clung to.
For a heartbeat, I thought I had misheard.
The delivery room fell silent.
Even through the haze of unbearable contractions, I caught the horrified glance the assisting nurse shot toward my husband.
“Dr. Vance,” she said, her voice trembling, “the baby’s measurements are far beyond the expected range. Her vitals are deteriorating. We should perform an emergency C-section before—”
“I’m the attending physician.”
Julian didn’t even let her finish.
“I’ll decide how this baby is delivered.”
His voice was calm. Cold. Final.
I stared at him through blurred vision, waiting for the husband I’d loved for seven years to look at me instead of the monitor.
He never did.
The antiseptic burned my nose, but it couldn’t hide the metallic scent of my own blood. Every contraction felt as if my pelvis were being forced apart from the inside. My muscles shook uncontrollably, and warm sweat soaked the thin hospital gown clinging to my skin.
I knew exactly what my body was trying to tell everyone.
I was Aria Montgomery, Chief of Emergency Medicine.
I’d spent my career recognizing the earliest signs of catastrophe.
And right now…
I was watching one happen inside my own body.
“Julian…” My voice cracked. “He can’t fit. My uterus is under too much stress. Please… don’t do this.”
He finally looked at me. Not with concern. Not with love. With irritation.
“Aria, stop trying to run my operating room the way you run your ER.”
Every word struck harder than the contractions.
Not because he questioned my judgment. Because he dismissed me completely.
The man who once bragged that marrying another physician made him the luckiest man alive now spoke to me as if I were an inconvenience delaying his schedule.
Before I could answer, Serena stepped beside him.
Her eyes glistened with carefully rehearsed tears.
“Dr. Vance… please don’t be upset with Dr. Montgomery,” she whispered. “She only knocked over my medication tray because she’s in so much pain. It wasn’t intentional.”
Liar.
Less than a minute earlier, she’d leaned over me pretending to wipe the sweat from my forehead.
Instead, she’d dug her sharpened nails into the tender inside of my arm until I jerked from the pain.
The tray fell because of her. She knew it. I knew it.
But the only opinion that mattered belonged to Julian.
He didn’t even ask what had happened. He had already chosen who to believe.
I watched him soften when he looked at Serena.
I couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked at me that way.
Something inside me cracked.
Not a bone. Not a muscle.
Something far more difficult to repair.
Seven years of trust. Seven years of believing that no matter what happened, my husband would stand beside me.
The illusion died without making a sound.
“Hold her still.”
The order echoed through the room.
Three nurses hesitated. One of them swallowed hard.
