Chapter 2 - The Cost of a Name

The waiting room outside the surgical suite felt like a purgatory made of beige vinyl and fluorescent lights. Two hours had passed. Every time the double doors hissed open, Cormack’s heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped animal, only to sink when it was just a passing orderly.

He paced the length of the room. He had survived gang wars, federal indictments, and assassination attempts, but nothing had ever terrified him like the silence of this hospital.

He remembered the day he left her. Brin had been standing in the doorway of her small apartment, wearing one of his old dress shirts. She hadn’t screamed. She hadn’t thrown things. She had just looked at him with those deep, expressive brown eyes and said, “I thought you were different. But you’re just afraid.”

He had told himself he was protecting her from the cartel, from his enemies, from the blood on his hands. But as he stood in the hospital, he knew the truth: he had been terrified of loving someone more than he loved his own power. And in his arrogance, he had left her to face the hardest battle of her life completely alone.

The doors hissed open. A doctor in blood-spattered blue scrubs stepped out, pulling down his surgical mask. He looked exhausted.

Cormack closed the distance between them in three strides. “Where is she?”

The doctor sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Mr. Hale? You have a son. He was born at thirty-eight weeks, weighing six pounds. He’s in the NICU, but he’s breathing on his own. He is perfectly healthy.”

A son. The word hit Cormack like a physical blow. A boy. His boy.

“And Brin?” Cormack choked out.

The doctor’s expression hardened into grim professional sympathy. “Her heart gave out during the delivery. We had to use the paddles twice to bring her back. She’s alive, but she is in a medically induced coma in the ICU to reduce the strain on her heart. The next twenty-four hours are critical. If her heart doesn’t begin to repair itself...” He didn't finish the sentence.