Chapter 3 - THE MAN AT THE HOSPITAL
At the hospital, nobody asked Elena to explain why she had stayed.
They asked where it hurt.
They checked her blood pressure, listened to the baby’s heartbeat, and brought warm blankets.
A doctor named Priya Shah pulled a chair beside her bed.
“You’re having contractions. We’re going to monitor you closely.”
“Is my baby okay?”
“Right now, the heartbeat is reassuring.”
Right now.
Elena held on to those two words.
Outside the room, Julian’s voice rose.
“I’m her husband.”
A nurse answered, “And she has asked for privacy.”
Elena had said that?
Apparently she had.
It felt strange hearing her wishes treated as instructions.
Twenty minutes later, the hallway fell silent.
Her father entered alone.
Gabriel Moretti wore a dark overcoat, no tie, and the expression of a man who had spent a long drive imagining every terrible possibility.
He stopped at the foot of her bed.
His eyes went to her bandaged hand.
Then her knees.
Then her face.
“Elena.”
She began crying before he reached her.
“I’m sorry.”
He sat beside her.
“For what?”
“For not calling. For the letters. For—”
“No.”
His voice broke on that single word.
“You do not apologize to me from a hospital bed.”
She gripped his hand.
It was warmer than she remembered.
For years, she had thought of him as a dangerous name, a locked office, men who stopped talking when she entered a room.
She had forgotten that he used to cut the crusts off her sandwiches.
Julian appeared in the doorway.
“Mr. Moretti. There’s been a misunderstanding.”
Gabriel did not turn.
“Leave.”
“I think Elena should explain—”
“She asked for privacy,” the nurse said, returning behind him.
Julian’s jaw tightened.
“Elena, tell them.”
She looked at her husband.
At the expensive watch she had bought him.
At the man who had kept her phone while she begged for help.
“I want you to leave.”
He searched her face for the woman who used to soften every sentence.
She wasn’t there.
When the door closed, Gabriel reached into his coat and took out his phone.
Elena tightened her grip.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“No one gets hurt,” she said. “Promise me.”
Something moved behind his eyes.
Then he set the phone down.
“What do you want?”
“A lawyer. My money back. And my child safe.”
“You’ll have all three.”
Her own phone, returned by hospital security, vibrated on the bedside table.
May you like
A message from Julian.
Before you say anything else, ask your father why he paid me.
