Part 2
The ride to the hospital was a blur of flashing red lights and the deafening roar of the siren. I was slipping in and out of consciousness, the world tilting and spinning every time I tried to open my eyes.
But I could feel Ethan.
His hand was wrapped around mine so tightly it crushed my fingers, but I didn't care. He was whispering to me, his voice cracking with a raw, desperate fear I had never heard from him before.
"Stay with me, Emily. Please, baby, just look at me. Don't close your eyes."
Every breath I took felt like inhaling shattered glass. The agonizing pain in my abdomen was a constant, vicious reminder of what Madison had done.
When the ambulance doors burst open at the emergency room, everything became chaotic. Shouted medical jargon, the bright, sterile fluorescent lights of the hallway, and the cold metal of the gurney beneath me. They wheeled me into a trauma bay, and for a terrifying moment, Ethan was forced to stay behind.
"I'm her husband! I'm an attorney, let me in!" I heard him yell, his voice echoing down the corridor before a nurse closed the heavy double doors.
The next few hours were a living nightmare of needles, ultrasound machines, and grim-faced doctors. The silence in the room during the ultrasound was the loudest thing I had ever heard. The technician didn't look at me. She didn't smile. She just kept moving the transducer over my stomach, her lips pressed into a thin, tight line.
When the doctor finally stepped forward, his eyes held a profound sadness that broke my heart before he even spoke.
"Emily," he said softly, taking my hand. "I am so incredibly sorry. The trauma from the blunt force caused a severe placental abruption. We couldn't save the baby."
The world stopped.
A choked, hollow sound escaped my throat. The tiny heartbeat we had just listened to hours earlier, the beautiful, perfect life we had planned for, was gone. Murdered by my own sister.
By the time they moved me to a private recovery room, the physical pain had numbed into a deep, suffocating grief. The door opened, and Ethan walked in.
He looked like a ghost. His shirt was stained with my blood, his hair was wild, and his knuckles were white. But when he saw my face, he knew. He didn't ask questions. He just collapsed next to my bed, buried his face in my shoulder, and wept. We held each other in the quiet room, mourning the child we would never get to hold.
An hour later, Ethan stood up.
The tears were gone. His eyes were no longer bloodshot with grief; they were cold, dark, and lethal. The loving, gentle man I knew had locked himself away, replaced by the most ruthless prosecutor in the state.
"The police are outside," Ethan said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "They want your statement. But before they come in, you need to know something."
He leaned down, brushing a stray hair away from my bandaged forehead.
"Your father called my phone while you were in surgery. He asked me how much money it would take to make this 'misunderstanding' go away. He said Madison is young and has her whole life ahead of her."
A cold rage, sharp and sudden, ignited inside my chest, cutting through the grief.
"What did you tell him?" I whispered, my voice trembling.
May you like
Ethan smiled, but it was a terrifying expression.
"I told him to spend that money on the best criminal defense lawyers in the country. Because tomorrow morning, I am filing formal charges for aggravated assault, domestic violence, and feticide. I told him I am going to destroy them."
