I simply placed the consent form in front of her. "Think it over and decide quickly. Time waits for no one—once your surgery is done, I still need to get back to my wedding..."
My words were cut off by a man's voice from behind.
"Wedding? Who are you marrying?"
"We've been divorced three months and you're already getting married?!"
Rhys stood at the operating room entrance, four bodyguards in black flanking him like a wall.
His tailored suit accentuated his tall frame, his presence radiating an almost suffocating pressure.
"Leonora, do you hear me talking to you?"
"What's this? Three months divorced and you've already forgotten your ex-husband?"
His gaze swept past me. Before I could respond, his expression shifted the moment he spotted Sophie on the operating table.
She lay there with an oxygen tube, her face deathly pale.
Pain flickered through Rhys's eyes instantly, and his voice turned glacial. "Leonora, what did you do to her?"
"She was perfectly fine when she left this morning! What have you two been doing behind my back?!"
Sophie raised a trembling hand toward him. "Rhys! She's trying to kill me!"
Her voice came out hoarse and broken. "She took a scalpel and twisted it inside me! She said, 'After this cut, you'll never have children again!' I begged her to stop, but she kept going until I nearly died from the pain..."
Before she could finish, violent coughs wracked her body. Her chest heaved, and the cardiac monitor shrieked its alarm.
Gasping for breath, she screamed with every ounce of strength she had left: "So you're Rhys's ex-wife!"
"Rhys, she's jealous! Jealous that I can give you children! Jealous that I'm going to be Mrs. Abbott!"
I dropped the blood-soaked gauze into the medical waste bin, then picked up the surgical record and waved it slowly in front of Rhys. "Mr. Abbott, a ruptured abscess in her lower body triggered sepsis. If your fiancée had arrived forty minutes later, she'd be in the morgue right now."
Before Rhys could take it, Sophie snatched the document away. "Rhys, she's lying! She's framing me on purpose!"
"She knows you divorced her for me, so she's using her position to get revenge!"
Sophie ripped the IV needle from the back of her hand. "Rhys, look—she deliberately missed the vein. She left bruises all over me, even on my neck!"
"She threatened me too! Said she'd leak my medical records to every media outlet so the whole world would know you married someone beneath her!"
I turned my head to look at Sophie.
Her body was indeed covered in purple marks.
But those had been there when she was admitted.
Obviously, they were love bites.
Rhys pulled her into his arms, then ground his heel into the surgical record on the floor. "Leonora, back then you tried to force me into marriage by holding my grandfather's life-saving medication hostage. When that failed, you decided to destroy Sophie instead?"
He let out a cold laugh. "Mercy Heart Hospital? You think you deserve to work here?"
"Clearly I was far too merciful during our divorce. I've spoiled you enough that you now dare to touch my woman."
"Leonora, I don't think you've ever experienced what happens when you cross Rhys Abbott."
The moment he finished speaking, two bodyguards stepped forward and wrenched my arms behind my back.
I was forced to my knees before Rhys and Sophie.
I lifted my gaze to meet his, my voice laced with mockery. "Rhys, aren't you the least bit curious why she'd rather die than have this surgery?"
The guards bound my wrists with restraints, the straps cutting into flesh, pain radiating through my entire body.
I'd hemorrhaged during a difficult delivery. I was still nursing. My body hadn't recovered. The forced position sent agony tearing through my abdomen.
