The ambulance siren wailed through the night.
My vision swam in and out as I was wheeled inside the hospital.
"Miss!" The doctor caught my face gently, forcing my unfocused gaze to hers. "Listen to me. If you can hold on for one hour, we can save the baby. But I need to give you this injection right now."
"This will stabilize you. If I don't administer it, your heart will fail before labour finishes. Your body can't handle both shock and blood loss."
My hands trembled as I clutched my belly, terror clawing its way up my throat.
"Do it," I whispered. "Please… do it."
The needle had barely touched my skin.
Bang! Graystone soldiers flooded in, two at the front with hands inside their jackets, and behind them Nico strode forward, his arms holding Serafina trembling like a wounded lamb.
Nico's gaze landed on the syringe before something ugly twisted in his eyes.
He strode forward and slapped the doctor's hand away.
The syringe, my last chance, flew through the air and shattered against the floor, the lifesaving medicine spilling out uselessly.
"You! No!" the doctor screamed. "That shot was her only chance! The baby won't make it! Even Bianca's heart—"
"There is a limit to shamelessness! You found Serafina was getting her treatment here and hired all doctors faking your illness!" Nico didn't let the doctor finish.
"Get her out and prepare for Serafina's treatment immediately!" he ordered coldly.
The nurse interjected quickly. "Sir, Miss Serafina seems fine. It's Miss Bianca—"
The doctor was taken away despite resistance and the door slammed shut. Two soldiers stood outside it like sentinels, arms crossed, faces blank.
Silence crashed down before a thunderous sound echoed.
SLAP!
My head whipped sideways, the taste of blood bursting across my tongue. The room spun as my ears rang from the force. The fluorescent light above me strobed once, or maybe that was my vision failing.
For half a second, Nico's gaze faltered when he saw my state before Serafina's cry echoed, making his guilt disappear completely.
"You have crossed every limit, Bianca!" Nico snapped, his eyes burning with rage.
"Serafina was perfectly fine until you brought that food! What the hell did you mix in it?!"
"Nothing," I said hoarsely. "It was her who mixed the peanuts—"
"Nothing?" His eyes darkened, voice dropping to ice. "You still dare lie!"
"Today I will teach you a lesson you will never forget." His voice carried the formal weight of a decree, the kind spoken before witnesses and never retracted. "I, Nico Graystone, Boss of the Graystone Family, strip you, Bianca Ferrante, of your title and standing as my wife. From now onwards your status is reduced to nothing. You are unworthy to stand beside me or speak for this Family. Apologize, or this won't be it!" he commanded.
"No!" I spat.
"What did you say?" His eyes sharpened into ice, a tinge of shock at my calmness.
"I said no! I will not—"
He reached into his pocket.
And the world… stopped.
Hanging between his fingers was a small, tarnished locket belonging to my mother. The very locket I had given Nico as a promise when we were thirteen. If you keep this, you keep me.
"You shouldn't be so stubborn, Bianca." His thumb traced it lazily.
"Apologize now or this disappears forever." A chill crept into his eyes, his tone leaving no room for refusal.
My vision blurred. Not from weakness, but from grief so sharp that it crushed me.
I got up with the last of my breaths, my knees hitting the cold floor. Pain ricocheted up my spine. The hospital tile was freezing, the kind of cold that seeped through cloth and skin and went straight to bone.
I could barely breathe, barely stay upright.
Slowly… painfully… I lowered myself until my forehead touched the cold floor.
"I am sorry," I whispered before looking up at Nico, and the moment our eyes met, his entire being faltered.
Broken, destroyed, and utterly ruined.
The red-rimmed eyes that once held an ocean of love looked at him with raw despair… empty.
This time, he hesitated, his expression complicated. His fingers twitched around the unlit cigarette he'd been holding, and for one breath the motion stopped completely.
It was then Serafina sniffled delicately, wiping a perfectly timed tear. Her fingertips drifted to her collarbone, eyes glistening with tears that pooled and shimmered but never fell.
"Oh, sister… I didn't want this." It was then she gently took the locket from Nico.
"Here, sister… I will give it to you," she murmured, stepping toward me with a gentle, angelic smile.
My fingers shook as I reached out, bloodshot eyes only focused on it, but before I could grasp it… the locket fell.
Clink.
The glass center shattered like a small, dying cry, breaking into millions of pieces. My mother's photograph scattered across the hospital floor in fragments no bigger than dust.
"No!" I screamed, a raw sound that rippled through the ward.
My knees scraped the floor, pain burning through bone as I scrambled on my palms across the broken glass, desperately trying to gather the tiny fragments.
"Bianca, stop it." Nico looked momentarily at a loss but still hardened his expression.
"NO!!" I shouted, my voice unrecognizable.
Serafina jumped at the sound, then instantly clutched her stomach dramatically, gasping.
"N-Nico… sister is scaring me… I am sorry… I didn't mean to drop it… please don't be angry…"
A flicker of pity rose in Nico but the moment he thought of Serafina, it disappeared.
His eyes turned cold, flat.
"Stop this pathetic tantrum," he said to me, voice low with disgust. "If you were so concerned about it then maybe you shouldn't have tried to kill your sister!"
I stared at the ground, my chest rising violently, my hands still digging through glass.
And yet he didn't see the wounds on my hand, the tremors racking my body as I went paler each passing second.
He only saw Serafina.
"You can always buy another trinket," he snapped. "Why destroy your dignity over something useless?"
Useless.
My throat closed.
The locket that survived the night my father poured kerosene on my mother's belongings and burned her from our lives.
Useless.
The only proof my mother ever existed.
The only reassurance I had that she still watched over me.
The only thing I thought would protect my daughter in my womb.
Something inside me fractured so fatally that I forgot to breathe.
"If you understand your mistake, go home and wait for me. This locket… I will compensate you after our wedding tomorrow."
He turned away, guiding Serafina out. One of the soldiers held the door open for them, then pulled it shut without looking back at me.
Silence settled, heavy as ash.
I remained kneeling on the floor, fingers trembling over the bloodied shards. Somewhere down the corridor a phone rang and rang and no one answered it.
Then a warm wetness trickled down my thigh.
Slow, heavy, and dark red.
Spreading like a quiet massacre beneath me.
At first I stared at it blankly as if it belonged to someone else, as if it couldn't possibly be my baby.
My daughter.
But the crimson blood kept blooming beneath me.
My throat closed so tight I couldn't breathe. Couldn't scream. Couldn't move.
It felt like watching my entire life drain out onto the floor as nurses rushed inside, holding my head before it hit the ground.
"She is going into shock labour! Move, now!"
