Chapter 12 - BEFORE MORNING
The room filled quickly.
Dr. Bennett spoke to the nurse, checked Khloe, then turned toward her.
“The baby is showing signs that he isn’t tolerating this well. Your bleeding has increased. We need to deliver him.”
Khloe stared at her.
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“But he’s too early.”
“I know.”
Marcus bent beside the bed.
Khloe looked at him as though she were trying to remember his face.
“Don’t let me wake up alone.”
“You won’t.”
Things moved faster after that.
Consent.
Questions.
A surgical cap pulled over Khloe’s hair.
Rachel kissed her forehead and told her she would be waiting.
Marcus changed into the clothes a nurse handed him with fingers that barely worked.
In the operating room, he sat beside Khloe’s head.
She kept asking whether the baby was out.
He answered when he knew.
Stayed quiet when he didn’t.
Then someone said the time.
And their son was born.
There was no immediate cry.
Khloe turned toward Marcus.
“Why isn’t he crying?”
The neonatal team worked beyond the screen.
Marcus could hear voices, controlled and quick.
He had spent years believing silence could be filled with the right words.
Now he had none.
Then a thin sound reached them.
Small.
Angry.
Alive.
Khloe started sobbing.
Marcus pressed his forehead to hers.
A doctor came close enough for them to hear.
“He needs help breathing. We’re taking him to the neonatal intensive care unit.”
“Can I see him?” Khloe asked.
They brought him near for a brief moment, tiny beneath the equipment and blankets.
Khloe touched one finger to his hand.
“Hi, Noah.”
They had argued about names for months.
Now there was no argument.
Marcus swallowed.
“Hi, son.”
Hours later, Khloe woke in recovery.
Marcus was there.
So was Rachel.
And on Marcus’s phone was a photograph of Noah, taken with the unit’s permission.
“He’s still getting breathing support,” Marcus said. “The doctor says they’re watching him closely.”
Khloe studied every inch of the picture.
“He looks like he’s mad at us.”
Rachel laughed through tears.
“He’s your kid. Of course he does.”
For a moment, they were only a family.
Then Marcus’s phone vibrated.
Ortiz.
He stepped just outside the curtain to answer.
“We found the contractor’s payment,” she said.
“Adrian?”
“A company he controls.”
Marcus looked back at Khloe.
May you like
“There’s something else,” Ortiz added.
“Before we could interview him again, he left his house with a suitcase.”
