Chapter 3 - The Race Against Time
The drive to St. Jude’s Memorial Hospital was a blur of hazard lights, roaring tires, and shattered illusions. Ethan drove with one hand on the steering wheel while keeping his other arm protectively around Lucy, who had curled up in the passenger seat of his luxury sedan, exhausted from miles of walking in the storm. Every streetlamp they passed cast long, distorted shadows that mirrored the chaotic cyclone spinning inside Ethan's mind.
How had Victoria known about Olivia? Twelve years ago, Victoria had been a junior legal associate at the corporate firm where Ethan was just starting to make partner. Olivia had been a freelance graphic designer living across town. Ethan remembered the abrupt, devastating breakup—Olivia packing her bags overnight, leaving a cold note saying she never loved him and was leaving the city with another man. He had drowned his sorrow in work, eventually leaning on Victoria’s steady, ambitious presence to climb the corporate ladder until they became co-owners of Hale-Pierce Enterprises.
It had all been a lie. A cage built on forged checks and manufactured heartbreak.
They screeched to a halt in the hospital's emergency bay. Ethan didn't bother parking in a proper spot; he left the hazard lights blinking, scooped Lucy up, and sprinted through automatic sliding doors that smelled sharply of bleach and antiseptic.
"Room 408," Lucy whispered against his shoulder. "Intensive Care."
They burst through the double doors of the ICU unit. A nurse rushed forward to intercept them, but one look at Ethan’s wild, bloodshot eyes and the trembling child stopped her in her tracks.
"She's... she's fading fast," a tired doctor in a rumpled white coat said, stepping out of Room 408. "Are you family?"
"I'm her father," Ethan declared, his voice thick with unspooled grief. "Let me in."
The doctor hesitated, then pushed the door wide open.
The room was painfully quiet, save for the rhythmic, mechanical hiss of an oxygen machine and the steady beep of a heart monitor that sounded far too slow. Lying against the pillows was a woman whose face was heartbreakingly familiar, yet hollowed out by relentless illness. Dark circles bruised her closed eyes, and her skin was the color of old parchment. Olivia Bennett.
"Olivia," Ethan breathed, stepping up to the bedside and dropping to his knees. He gently took her limp, ice-cold hand, pressing it against his cheek. "Olivia, I'm here. I'm so sorry... I'm so sorry I didn't know."
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Olivia’s eyelids fluttered. Slowly, painfully, she dragged them open. Her dull, glassy eyes searched the dim room before focusing on Ethan. A faint, sad smile touched her chapped lips.
"You... you came," she whispered, her voice like dry leaves scraping across pavement. "And... you brought our girl."
