Chapter 3 - The Waking
The steady hiss of a ventilator and the smell of sterile cotton pulled Hannah from the dark.
Her eyelids fluttered, feeling as heavy as lead. The light in the Intensive Care Unit was dimmed, casting soft, cinematic shadows across the room. She tried to move her hand to her stomach, panic instantly spiking when she felt the emptiness there.
"They're safe," a deep, terribly familiar voice said from the corner of the room.
Hannah froze. Her heart monitor spiked, the machine betraying her sudden terror. She slowly turned her head. Sitting in a chair by the window, bathed in the gray light of the Chicago rain, was Ethan Caldwell. He looked older, his jawline sharper, shadows of exhaustion painted under his dark eyes. He was no longer the arrogant heir she had loved; he looked like a man who had walked through fire.
"My babies," she croaked, her throat raw.
"A boy and a girl," Ethan said softly, standing up and approaching the bed. He stopped three feet away, respecting the invisible wall between them. "They are premature, but they are strong, Hannah. They’re in the NICU. They're going to be fine."
Tears spilled over her lashes. "I need to see them."
"You need to heal first." Ethan's eyes roamed her face, lingering on the fading bruises along her collarbone that the hospital gown didn't quite hide. His voice tightened. "Hannah... who did this to you? Why were you working in a warehouse? The last I heard, you were taking an internship in London."
Hannah let out a bitter, broken laugh that turned into a cough. "London? Is that what she told you?"
Ethan frowned. "My mother?"
"Your mother," Hannah whispered, the old pain flaring up, sharper than her surgical wounds. "She didn't just fire me, Ethan. She blacklisted me. She accused me of stealing from the foundation, threatened to have me arrested, and told me if I ever came near you again, she would ruin my father's life. He was sick. We needed his pension. So I ran."
Ethan looked as though he had been struck. The air in the room seemed to vanish. "She told me you took a payoff. She showed me the bank transfers."
"Forged," Hannah said, turning her face away, staring at the blank wall. "But you believed her. Because it was easier to believe I was a gold-digger than to believe your family was a monster."
Silence hung heavy in the room. Ethan stared at the monitor, his mind spinning as five years of manufactured reality shattered around him. He had spent years hating her for leaving, when in reality, she had been thrown to the wolves by his own blood.
"The babies," Ethan asked quietly, dreading the answer. "Are they..."
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"They’re mine," Hannah said fiercely, her eyes snapping back to his. "And their father is a mistake I made trying to survive. A mistake who is currently looking for me because I ran away from him, too. So thank you for the surgery, Dr. Caldwell. But the minute I can walk, I’m taking my children and leaving."
Ethan stepped closer, his presence suddenly commanding, filling the room. "You aren't running anymore, Hannah. I won't let you."
