The Child I Lost
I woke to warmth and hated it.
For one confused second, my body searched for the basement floor. It expected cold stone, rust, blood, and darkness. Instead, I lay beneath clean sheets in a room filled with pale morning light. A heart monitor beat beside me. IV lines ran into my hand.
Then memory returned.
The fall. The blood. Julia's smile. Vance's voice through the phone, telling me to reflect on my disrespect while our child slipped away in the dark.
My hand moved to my stomach. Empty.
A sound broke from me before I could stop it.
"Don't move too quickly."
Achilles sat in the chair beside the bed. He looked as if he had not slept. His black shirt was rolled to the elbows, and dried blood darkened one cuff, though I did not know whether it was mine or someone else's.
He stood and poured water, then stopped before touching me.
"May I help you sit up?"
The question undid me more thoroughly than pity would have.
I nodded.
He supported the back of my neck and helped me drink. His hand was steady, but his jaw was not.
"Where am I?" I asked.
"My estate. My territory. Vance cannot reach you here without starting a war he is not ready to win."
"The baby?"
Achilles did not lie. "I'm sorry, Sandra. By the time I reached you, there was too much blood. My doctors tried. They could not save the pregnancy."
The finality passed through my chest and left nothing standing.
I turned my face away because I had spent five years learning not to cry where men could see. Vance hated tears. He called them manipulation.
But Achilles did not leave.
The bed dipped as he sat beside me. He only held out his hand, palm open, and waited until I chose to take it.
When I did, his fingers closed around mine with careful strength.
"Mourn him," he said quietly. "No one in this house will tell you to be silent."
Him.
The child had been too small for anyone to know, but in my heart he had already been real enough to lose.
I cried until my ribs screamed and the monitors complained. Achilles stayed through all of it, saying nothing, anchoring me with one hand while I grieved for the baby I never held and the foolish woman who had believed Vance would change.
When the tears finally faded, Dr. Bell came in. He was older, silver-haired, and too serious to be one of the underworld butchers Vance kept for bullet wounds.
"During surgery, we ran complete blood panels," he said. "At first, we thought your weakness was only from blood loss. It isn't."
A strange calm settled over me. "What is it?"
"Acute myeloid leukemia. Aggressive. Advanced enough that we cannot delay treatment."
Cancer.
The word should have frightened me more. Perhaps it would have yesterday. But yesterday I still had a child. Yesterday time had still seemed ordinary.
"How long?" I asked.
"Without treatment, months. With immediate treatment, there is a chance of remission, but it will be difficult. There are no promises."
Achilles' hand tightened around mine.
A laugh rose in me, quiet and dry.
Achilles frowned. "Sandra."
"I'm not laughing because it's funny." I turned toward the window. "I'm laughing because I have nothing left to lose."
The doctor looked uncomfortable. Achilles understood.
"What do you want?" he asked.
"My briefcase," I said. "The one I brought to the penthouse. Did your men recover it?"
"Yes."
"Bring it to me."
Minutes later, the black briefcase sat beside me. I touched the bonds inside. Vance had laughed at the money because he thought I could not possibly hold anything real.
He had no idea what else I held.
"For five years, Vance thought I waited in his penthouse like a decorative prisoner. He never understood that every shipment route, every offshore account, every weak capo, every blind spot in his security passed through my hands. He called me a debt bride, but I was the one keeping his empire from falling apart."
Achilles went very still.
I pushed the briefcase toward him.
"You hate Vance. I know how to ruin him. Give me doctors, protection, and enough time to make him watch everything collapse."
"And in return?" he asked.
I met his eyes.
"Marry me."
