Chapter 5 - The Doctor Who Never Existed |
The stranger's words stayed with me long after hospital security escorted him away.
"Your husband isn't the one you should be afraid of."
I lay awake staring at the ceiling.
Every sound outside my room made my pulse jump.
Every rolling cart sounded like footsteps.
Every unfamiliar voice made me wonder whether another person had been sent to finish what Arthur started.
Dante sat beside me, refusing to leave even when Gabriel offered to take over.
"You need sleep," I whispered.
"So do you."
"I'm scared."
His expression softened.
"I know."
"No, I mean I'm scared that Arthur isn't acting alone."
Dante looked toward the door.
"He's not."
Something about his answer frightened me.
"How much do you know?"
"Enough to believe we're dealing with people who have been using Arthur for years."
I touched my stomach.
"And they know about our baby."
His eyes dropped to my hand.
"Yes."
That single word carried more weight than a hundred promises.
I had imagined so many things about becoming a mother.
Morning sickness.
Tiny socks.
A nursery filled with sunlight.
I had never imagined armed security outside my hospital room or strangers pretending to be doctors.
"Do you regret it?" I asked.
Dante looked at me sharply.
"Regret what?"
"Us."
He seemed almost wounded.
"Nora."
"If I hadn't fallen in love with you, none of this would have happened."
He leaned forward.
"Arthur's choices are not your responsibility."
"But our baby has become part of some terrible fight."
"Our baby exists because we love each other."
His voice broke slightly.
"And I will never regret that."
I began crying.
Dante gathered me carefully into his arms.
For several minutes, he said nothing.
He simply held me while I mourned the ordinary pregnancy I had lost.
Downstairs, Detective Alvarez was questioning the man who had impersonated a doctor.
His identification named him Dr. Malcolm Warren.
But the photograph on the hospital credential had been digitally altered.
His fingerprints identified him as Julian Cross, a former pharmaceutical sales representative dismissed years earlier for falsifying records.
He had no medical license.
He had entered the hospital using credentials obtained through a compromised contractor account.
When Alvarez asked why he wanted Nora transferred, Cross requested an attorney.
When she asked who had hired him, he laughed nervously.
"You think this is about her husband?"
"Tell me what it's about."
Cross glanced toward the recording camera.
"I want protection."
"From whom?"
He swallowed.
"People who make prosecutors disappear."
Alvarez leaned forward.
"Names."
Cross shook his head.
"I can't."
"Then I can't evaluate your claim."
He closed his eyes.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Finally, he whispered a name.
"Adrian Voss."
Alvarez wrote it down.
"Who is Adrian Voss?"
Cross looked at her with genuine disbelief.
"You don't know?"
He laughed once.
It sounded more like a cough.
"Then you have no idea what you've walked into."
Adrian Voss was not a name I recognized.
Dante recognized it immediately.
When Evelyn showed him the interview summary, he went silent.
Gabriel noticed.
"Sir?"
Dante closed the folder.
"Voss financed part of the original Port East development."
Evelyn nodded.
"His investment group operates through private offshore funds."
"That's the public version."
Gabriel crossed his arms.
"And the private version?"
Dante looked toward the hospital room where Nora was sleeping.
"Voss buys influence. He purchases distressed companies, positions loyal intermediaries, and uses compromised public officials to protect his deals."
"Arthur?"
"Possibly."
Evelyn turned another page.
"There's more."
She explained that Voss had recently tried to acquire a logistics terminal belonging to Corvino Holdings.
Dante had refused.
The terminal was strategically important because it controlled access to a major shipping corridor.
Without it, Voss's planned waterfront development faced expensive delays.
Dante frowned.
"He offered me four times the property's market value."
"Why did you turn him down?" Gabriel asked.
"Because the offer required us to waive environmental inspections and surrender access to our internal shipping records."
Evelyn looked up.
"That wasn't a normal acquisition proposal."
"No."
Dante understood now.
Voss hadn't wanted a warehouse.
He had wanted a gateway into the entire shipping network.
"And Arthur was supposed to pressure you," Gabriel said.
Dante nodded.
"Until he found another way."
His eyes moved toward Nora's medical chart.
"The baby."
The following morning, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist named Dr. Rebecca Chen entered my room.
She was calm, direct, and careful not to make promises she couldn't guarantee.
"The good news is that the baby's heartbeat remains reassuring," she explained.
I felt relief wash over me.
"But?"
She pulled up a chair.
"You experienced significant trauma, and we're watching for bleeding, contractions, and signs of placental complications."
"Am I going to lose the baby?"
She met my eyes.
"I can't predict everything, Nora. But right now, both of you are receiving the care you need."
I nodded, forcing myself to listen.
She explained that I would need close observation and follow-up examinations.
She also asked whether I felt safe returning to my previous home.
"No."
The answer came without hesitation.
Dr. Chen nodded.
"Then our social work team can help coordinate a safe discharge plan when you're medically ready."
Dante stood near the window.
He didn't interrupt.
For once, nobody spoke over me.
Nobody answered for me.
Nobody treated me like property.
When Dr. Chen left, I looked at Dante.
"I don't want to spend my entire pregnancy hiding."
"You won't."
"And I don't want you making every decision."
He sat down.
"Then we make them together."
I smiled weakly.
"You say that now."
"I'm serious."
"Even if I decide I don't want to live in some enormous mansion surrounded by security cameras?"
He considered that.
"Would a smaller house with excellent locks be acceptable?"
I laughed.
It hurt my ribs.
But it was the first genuine laugh I'd managed since the attack.
Dante smiled too.
For a moment, we were simply two frightened people imagining a future.
Not a billionaire.
Not a district attorney's wife.
Just a man and a woman expecting a child.
That afternoon, Margaret returned.
She carried a small wooden box.
"My husband gave this to me before he died," she said.
Inside were photographs, letters, and an old newspaper clipping.
I recognized the headline immediately.
JOURNALIST KILLED IN LATE-NIGHT COLLISION.
Isabella.
Dante took the clipping carefully.
Margaret watched his expression.
"I didn't know your wife personally," she said.
"But Arthur did."
Dante raised his head.
"What?"
"He was an assistant prosecutor at the time."
Evelyn, who had been reviewing documents nearby, looked up.
"Was he involved in the investigation?"
Margaret nodded.
"He told me he'd been assigned to review certain evidence."
Dante stared at her.
"He never mentioned that."
"Arthur doesn't mention things that make him uncomfortable."
She removed a photograph from beneath the clipping.
It showed several men standing outside a waterfront office.
One was Arthur, considerably younger.
Another was a broad-shouldered man with silver hair.
Dante recognized him.
"Adrian Voss."
I looked between them.
"Are you saying Arthur knew the man who might have been involved in Isabella's death?"
Margaret hesitated.
"I'm saying Arthur has been connected to that world much longer than anyone knows."
Dante placed the photograph on the table.
His hands were steady.
His eyes were not.
For twelve years, he had believed Isabella's death belonged to a chapter of his life that could never be reopened.
Now that chapter was bleeding into mine.
"Why are you showing us this?" he asked Margaret.
She swallowed.
"Because my son came to me three nights ago."
Her face crumpled.
"He asked whether I still had your wife's newspaper clipping."
Dante leaned forward.
"Why?"
"He said he needed to remind you what happened to women who got too close to dangerous men."
A silence settled over the room.
I reached for Dante's hand.
Margaret began crying.
"I raised him," she whispered.
"I taught him right from wrong."
I squeezed her fingers.
"His decisions are his own."
She looked at me.
"I know that now."
At four seventeen that afternoon, Detective Alvarez received an urgent call.
Julian Cross had agreed to provide the name of the person who hired him.
But when officers returned to the interview room, they found him collapsed on the floor.
Paramedics were summoned immediately.
He was taken to a nearby medical facility in critical condition.
The investigators could not yet determine what had happened.
His attorney insisted he had been threatened.
Security footage showed only authorized personnel entering the corridor.
But one detail troubled Alvarez.
Twenty minutes before Cross collapsed, someone had accessed the building's visitor system using credentials that had already been revoked.
The login originated from a computer associated with the district attorney's administrative office.
Arthur's office.
Alvarez contacted the independent investigative team.
Then she called Dante's attorney.
"Mr. Corvino needs to know that whoever sent Cross may be trying to silence him."
Evelyn listened carefully.
"What about Nora?"
Alvarez paused.
"Tell her to keep cooperating. The evidence is growing."
When Evelyn ended the call, Dante was standing by the window.
"Cross?"
"Alive, but unable to speak for now."
Dante exhaled slowly.
"And the person behind him?"
"Still unknown."
At that moment, Gabriel received a secure message.
He opened it.
A single photograph appeared on his screen.
It showed Dante leaving the hospital that morning.
Underneath were six words.
We know where your family sleeps.
Gabriel looked up.
"Sir."
Dante took the phone.
Then another message arrived.
This one contained an image of a pale yellow nursery.
A room that did not yet exist.
May you like
And beneath it:
Choose the terminal, or choose the child.
