PART 2
“How can I help you, sir?”
Cormack Hale opened his mouth and found, for one rare second, that power had no language.
Behind the nurse, monitors flickered in blue and green. Phones rang. A doctor in navy scrubs strode past with a tablet tucked under one arm. Somewhere down the corridor, a woman cried out, then a door shut and cut the sound in half.
“I need to know where they took the woman who just came through,” Cormack said.
The nurse’s expression did not change, but her eyes sharpened. “Are you family?”
He almost said yes.
The word rose in his throat like blood.
Instead, the truth came out fractured. “I’m the father of her child.”
The nurse looked at him for a long beat.
In Cormack’s world, people moved when he spoke. Doors opened. Records vanished. Men twice his size lowered their eyes. But this woman only folded her hands on the desk and said, “Her name?”
“Brin Holloway.”
“And your name?”
“Cormack Hale.”
A flicker passed over her face. Recognition. Not fear, exactly. The city knew his name in whispers. Hospitals, like churches and courthouses, had their own private understanding of men like him.
The nurse lowered her voice. “Mr. Hale, Ms. Holloway was taken to Labor and Delivery Trauma. She is in critical condition. The team is working on her now.”
“What happened to her?”
“I can’t discuss details unless she has authorized—”
“She’s carrying my child.”
“That may be true,” the nurse said, not unkindly. “But it does not change privacy laws.”
Cormack leaned forward, his fingers pressing into the counter. For an instant, the old instinct moved through him: apply pressure, find weakness, force compliance.
Then he saw Brin again in his mind—white-faced, gasping, one hand clawed around the rail.
He stepped back.
The nurse noticed.
“Wait here,” she said. “I’ll see what I can find out.”
Cormack waited.
It was the hardest command he had ever obeyed.
Behind him, Royce stood at a distance, broad shoulders tense beneath his suit. Yara appeared moments later, wrapped in a pale camel coat, her black hair shining like ink beneath the fluorescent lights. Her expression was smooth, beautiful, and venomous.
“So,” she said softly, “that’s why you ran.”
Cormack did not turn. “Go back to the lounge.”
“Do not speak to me like an employee.”
“Then don’t follow me like one.”
Her mouth tightened. “Who is she?”
No answer.
Yara moved beside him, looking toward the sealed double doors. “The pregnant woman?”
Cormack’s silence answered for him.
A laugh escaped her, small and disbelieving. “You have got to be joking.”
“Not here.”
“Not here?” Her voice sharpened. “You dragged me to this hospital because my father wanted the pregnancy announcement handled quietly with our physician, and now you’re standing outside trauma for some bartender?”
Cormack’s eyes cut to hers.
Yara stopped speaking.
A nurse glanced over.
Cormack’s voice dropped until only she could hear it. “Choose your next sentence carefully.”
Yara’s face changed. Not fear. Rage. The kind carried by daughters of dangerous men who had never been told no without someone bleeding for it.
“You made me look like a fool,” she whispered.
“I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t know you had a woman pregnant?”
“I said go back to the lounge.”
Yara stared at him, then at the doors, then turned away with a smile that did not touch her eyes. “My father will love this.”
She walked off, heels striking the floor with surgical precision.
Cormack did not watch her go.
The nurse returned ten minutes later with a young resident whose face looked too tired for his age. His badge read DR. MALIK ROTH.
“Mr. Hale?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Dr. Roth inhaled. “Ms. Holloway is awake intermittently. She gave permission for you to be told limited information.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“She knows I’m here?”
“She asked who was outside. When we told her, she said…” The doctor hesitated.
Cormack’s jaw flexed. “Say it.”
“She said, ‘Of course he shows up now.’”
The words struck deeper than any bullet he had taken.
Dr. Roth continued. “She has peripartum cardiomyopathy. It’s a form of heart failure that can occur near the end of pregnancy or after delivery. Her heart isn’t pumping effectively. She came in with severe shortness of breath, dangerously low blood pressure, and signs of fetal distress.”
Cormack heard the words, but they rearranged themselves into simpler language.
Brin is dying.
The baby is dying.
“What do you need?” he asked.
