I stared her down, every syllable dropping like ice. "If you're still refusing surgery, fine. We bring your family into this. Are they here yet?"
"You haven't given me back a healthy son. You have no right to tell my family anything. Don't you dare contact him."
She probably didn't realize that in a situation like this, the hospital would have notified her family immediately.
Just then, Head Nurse Carter opened the door and came in, finding an excuse to pull me aside near the entrance.
A quick glance toward Rowena—satisfied she wasn't listening—and Helen pressed her mouth close to my ear. "The baby was found in a trash can in the men's restroom. They're trying to resuscitate him, but..."
Her gaze fell. A tear hung at the corner of her eye, and her voice came out scraped hollow. "He's not going to make it."
The door slammed open.
Clint barged in.
Our eyes met, and he recognized me instantly.
"Muriel, who's not going to make it?"
Whoever had hurt the baby might still be somewhere in the hospital.
I suggested checking the security footage, and Helen Carter took the chance to hurry off to the security office.
Rowena flung herself out of bed—hemorrhaging, barely upright—and crumpled to the floor after two steps. Her eyes flooded red, tears pooling. "Clint, I begged them for so long. They knew I was hemorrhaging, knew my life was on the line, and they still refused to save me.
"So that's Muriel—she hates me for taking you, she's jealous I can have your baby, and she wants me dead. She got her colleagues in on it, all of them, to just stand there and let me bleed out.
"Thank God you came. Otherwise she would have killed me."
Clint dropped to one knee and gathered Rowena into his arms.
His chest heaved, a vein pulsing hard at his temple. "Muriel, you vicious woman. You don't deserve to call yourself a doctor."
I bit down on the rage, picked the surgical consent form up off the floor, and held it in front of him. "She refused surgery. She was fully conscious, and she wouldn't sign. That's why we didn't operate. And everything she just told you is a lie."
The assisting physician cut in, voice tight with frustration. "She gave up the surgery herself. How is that on us?"
Rowena shot the young doctor a covert glare, then crawled over to me and grabbed my ankle, putting on a look of fragile desperation. "Dr. Maxwell, please, save me. My son can't lose his mother the day he's born.
"I know you've held a grudge ever since I took Clint from you. But you're a doctor—how can you just stand by and watch me die? How can you abuse your authority and bully her into covering for you, into backing up your lies?"
The assisting physician clenched her fists and stepped forward to argue, but I held her back.
I didn't want anyone else dragged into this.
Clint grabbed my arm and yanked me toward him so hard my shoulder socket screamed. His face was inches from mine, eyes flat and dangerous. "Muriel, don't think you can fool me. Ro spent months dreaming about this baby. She'd never refuse surgery. Not a chance."
The moment the words left his mouth, he flinched as if something had just struck him. He lunged to Rowena's side.
Guilt flooded his eyes, his voice scraping raw. "Ro, it's my fault. I got here too late. You've been suffering. Where's our son?"
At the mention of the baby, Rowena visibly flinched.
She avoided his eyes, buried her face against his chest, and choked out, "He... the hospital took him.
"The doctors lied to me. They said I gave birth to a baby with albinism. But I saw him with my own eyes. His hair was jet black. He was a perfectly healthy baby.
"You really are calculating, Muriel. Refusing to operate on me, covering up the truth for the hospital on one hand, and clearing the way to steal Clint back on the other. Two birds with one stone."
Clint's eyes blazed red—instant, total, like a furnace door ripped open.
