Chapter 3 - The Awakening
Lucia woke up to the sound of rhythmic, mechanical breathing.
She could not move her legs.
Her stomach felt as though it had been stitched together with burning wire.
She slowly opened her eyes and found herself in a private recovery room.
The space was dark, illuminated only by the streetlights bleeding through the window blinds.
She immediately reached for her abdomen.
It was empty.
A raw, primal panic seized her throat.
“She is alive,” a deep voice said from the corner of the room.
Michael Grant stepped out of the shadows.
He looked exhausted, his suit wrinkled and his tie missing.
“Where is my daughter?” Lucia choked out, tears finally breaking through her absolute control.
“She is in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit,” Michael said gently.
“She is three pounds, but she is breathing on her own.”
Lucia let out a heavy, shaking breath, falling back against the pillows.
“Dante tried to stop the surgery,” she whispered, remembering her final terrifying moment of consciousness.
“He tried,” Michael confirmed.
“But Gerald Whitmore’s emergency injunction cleared the court system exactly one minute before Dante walked into the operating room.”
“The hospital administrators threatened to have Dante arrested by federal agents if he interfered with a legally protected patient.”
Lucia looked at Dante’s head of security.
“Why are you still here, Michael?”
“If Dante finds out you pointed a gun at his mother, you are a dead man.”
Michael pulled a chair to the side of her bed and sat down.
“I have worked for the Moretti family for twelve years.”
“I have done terrible things for your husband.”
“But I watched him walk away from you tonight while you were bleeding to death.”
Michael leaned forward, his eyes deadly serious.
“I will not work for a man who abandons his own child.”
Before Lucia could process his defection, the door to the room creaked open.
Gerald Whitmore slipped inside, carrying a thick leather briefcase.
The old lawyer looked pale and deeply shaken.
“I got the injunctions through, Lucia,” Gerald said, refusing to meet her eyes.
“But Dante did not just go to a hotel to sleep with Vivian Ross.”
Gerald opened his briefcase and pulled out a stack of banking documents.
“Vivian is the chief financial officer of the Moretti offshore holdings.”
“While you were in surgery, they systematically drained every single account with your name on it.”
“They dissolved your trust funds.”
Gerald handed her the final document.
“And Dante filed an emergency psychiatric hold against you, claiming your blood loss caused a psychotic break.”
Lucia stared at the paper in horror.
“He cannot legally take my child out of the NICU,” she said.
“He doesn't have to,” Gerald replied grimly.
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“He just signed the paperwork transferring her to a private clinic owned by the Moretti family.”
“They are coming to take your baby in twenty minutes.”
