Chapter 1 - THE QUESTION HE COULDN’T STOP
Garrett’s hand closed around my broken forearm, and the pain ripped through me so violently that I nearly fell out of the wheelchair.
I screamed.
My good arm flew over my pregnant belly while the hospital hallway tilted beneath the fluorescent lights.
“Don’t you dare talk to my wife!” Garrett shouted.
Mateo Ruiz moved before anyone else did.
He tore Garrett’s fingers away from my swollen wrist and drove him backward with both hands.
Garrett’s polished public smile vanished.
For one second, his real face appeared.
Cold.
Furious.
Terrified.
The X-ray tablet glowed in Mateo’s hand.
On the screen, the bones in my left forearm looked like shattered branches.
Mateo studied the image, then looked at the bruises along my cheek and throat.
His voice dropped.
“Who really did this to you?”
Garrett took one step toward me.
His jaw tightened.
I heard his warning before he spoke it.
One look.
One breath through his nose.
The same silent command he had used for three years.
Lie.
Protect him.
Survive until we got home.
But Mateo stood between us.
And for the first time, Garrett could not reach me.
Tears slid down my face.
My lips trembled.
“He did.”
The hallway went silent.
Garrett lunged for Mateo’s phone.
Mateo pivoted and shielded it behind his body.
At the far end of the corridor, the elevator doors opened.
A woman in a charcoal suit stepped out beside a man in a dark jacket.
They walked directly toward us.
Garrett’s face lost all color.
“Who did you call?” he whispered.
Mateo lowered his phone.
“No one you can charm.”
The woman stopped in front of Garrett.
Her eyes moved from his clenched fists to my fractured arm.
“Elena Hartford?”
I nodded.
“I’m Special Agent Dana Brooks. This is Agent Paul Mercer.”
Garrett forced a laugh.
“Federal agents? This is a family misunderstanding.”
Agent Brooks looked at the X-ray.
Then at me.
Then at my husband.
“No,” she said. “It’s much bigger than that.”
Garrett’s breathing changed.
He knew something I didn’t.
Agent Mercer took a sealed evidence envelope from inside his coat.
Through the transparent plastic, I saw a hospital chart with my name printed across the top.
But I had never seen it before.
Agent Brooks held it where Garrett could see.
“We found this in your office.”
My husband stopped blinking.
I stared at the chart.
Under my name was a medical procedure scheduled for the following morning.
EMERGENCY FETAL INTERVENTION.
Below it, someone had written one sentence by hand.
May you like
IF THE MOTHER RESISTS, SEDATE HER.
The handwriting was Garrett’s.
