Chapter 4 - The Unraveling in Room 412
The silence that fell over Labor and Delivery Room 3 was heavy enough to crush bone.
Samuel’s hands dropped slowly to his sides. His mouth opened slightly, but no words came out—only a shallow, ragged intake of breath. For a second, he looked like a man who had stepped off a cliff and only just realized there was no ground beneath him.
"Eliza, what are you... what are you talking about?" he stammered, forcing a strained, disbelieving laugh that sounded brittle and hollow. "Jasmine? You're hallucinating from the pain, honey. The storm knocked out the power on the lower levels, I was up in the administrative wing reviewing emergency surgical logs with the board coordinator, and—"
"Her name was Dr. Chloe Vance?" Eliza interrupted softly, her eyes locked onto his. "No, Chloe is right here. Was it Dr. Harper? Or maybe one of the surgical residents from thoracic?"
"Stop it," Samuel hissed, glancing nervously toward the doorway where a nurse was lingering with a chart. He leaned in close, lowering his voice to an urgent, venomous whisper. "You are making a scene over nothing. I came down here the second I was free. I'm here now. Isn't that what you wanted?"
"No, Samuel," Eliza said, her contractions gripping her again, but this time she didn't cry out. She channeled every ounce of fire into her stare. "What I wanted was a husband. What I got was a coward hiding behind closed doors while his wife labored alone during a hurricane."
"I was working!" Samuel whispered fiercely, his face flushing dark red. "Do you have any idea how much pressure I'm under? My father expects me to take over the entire surgical department by next year, the board is breathing down my neck, and you expect me to drop everything every time you—"
"Every time I go into labor with our first child?" Eliza finished for him, her voice rising with a cold, cutting clarity that made Samuel physically recoil. "Get out."
"Eliza, be reasonable—"
"I said, get out of my sight before I press that call button and have security escort you out of the maternity wing."
Samuel stared at her, his jaw working furiously as he weighed his options. He could see the absolute granite resolve in her eyes. He knew arguing further would only draw an audience they couldn't afford. With a look of seething frustration, he spun on his heel, snatched his lab coat tighter around himself, and stormed out of the room, letting the heavy doors slam behind him with a resounding crash.
Eliza exhaled a long, shaky breath, sinking back into the pillows. Her body ached all over, but her mind was sharper than a scalpel.
May you like
She didn't know what Henry Whitmore was going to do with that audio file. But she knew one thing for certain: the patriarch of Whitmore Medical Center despised nothing more than incompetence, betrayal, and anything that threatened the immaculate public reputation of his family name.
And Samuel had just handed his father a loaded gun.
