Chapter 4 - CRITICAL DECLINE
The next hour was a nightmare of flashing red lights, loud sirens, and rushing gurneys.
Vincent never left my side. When the paramedics arrived to transfer me from the clinic to the ambulance, Grant tried to step in front of Vincent near the exit doors.
“Vincent, you have a meeting with the commission at four,” Grant insisted, holding up his tablet. “If you miss this sit-down, the Morettis will think you’re weak. Let Miles go with her—”
Vincent didn't even slow down. He grabbed Grant by the lapels of his coat and slammed him against the brick wall of the clinic hallway.
“If you speak to me about business right now,” Vincent growled, his voice vibrating with a terrifying, murderous rage, “I will lay you out
on this pavement. Get out of my sight.”
Grant went pale, nodding frantically as Vincent let him go and climbed into the back of the ambulance beside me.
Inside the vehicle, the paramedic attached an IV line to my arm, administering magnesium sulfate to prevent seizures. The medication made my body feel instantly heavy, hot, and flushed, as if liquid fire were being poured directly into my veins.
“Vincent...” I gasped, gripping his wrist as my vision started to blur.
“I’m here, Hannah,” he said, leaning over me, his hand cupping the side of my face. “I’m right here.”
“I’m scared.”
“Don't be,” he commanded, though his own voice trembled. “I won't let anything happen to you or our girl. Do you hear me? Look at me, Hannah.”
I forced my eyes open, focusing on his dark, intense gaze. “You promised... you promised you’d be there.”
“I’m here. I’m never leaving again.”
When we arrived at Evanston Hospital’s Labor and Delivery unit, a team of doctors and nurses swarmed the bay. Dr. Bennett was already there, having driven ahead to prepare the operating room.
“The fetal heart rate is dropping,” a nurse shouted, looking at the portable monitor. “It’s down to 80!”
“Decelerations,” Dr. Bennett said sharply. “The placenta is failing. We can't wait for a vaginal delivery. We need to do an emergency C-section right now.”
Vincent tried to follow the gurney into the surgical suite, but two nurses stopped him at the double doors.
“Sir, you need to scrub in and put on protective gear first!”
“That’s my wife and daughter!” Vincent bellowed, trying to push past them.
“Vincent!” I screamed from the gurney, panic seizing my chest as the room began to spin faster.
Vincent stopped, looking at me through the window of the doors. “I’m coming, Hannah! I’m right behind you!”
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They wheeled me into the cold, bright operating room. An anesthesiologist placed a mask over my face, telling me to breathe deeply. As the world faded into gray shadows, the last sound I heard was the flatlining alarm of the fetal monitor.
Our daughter had stopped breathing.
