Chapter
Two
SETH
The lights burned my eyes, but I couldn’t blink. Not when Stormi was laid out on that cold ass table, her belly cut open, her body fighting for every damn breath. My son, our son, was somewhere between this world and the next, and I wasn’t leaving them.
“Sir, you can’t be in here.”
“I said I’m not leaving.” My voice came out like gravel. My jaw clenched so tight I thought my teeth might snap. I scrubbed in, hands clean, and grown on, like I was the surgeon. I was here to make sure my wife, and son made it out of this alive.
One of the nurses shifted like she wanted to argue. I stepped closer, my eyes locked on hers. “You focus on saving my wife, not on me. You got that?”
She nodded quickly, eyes dropping. I moved to the corner of the room, arms crossed over my chest, rage pounding through my veins like wildfire. Every beep on the monitor was a warning bell in my head. Every drop of blood I saw felt like another second Stormi slipped away from me.
I leaned forward, my voice low but sharp, cutting through the silence. “Stormi, baby… you hear me? You hold on. Don’t you dare leave me, you hear?” My throat burned, but I kept my voice steady. “We got a son now. He needs you. I need you.”
The doctor muttered something to the anesthesiologist, and I swore for a second, I caught doubt in his tone. My hands curled into fists.
“Hey,” I snapped. “Don’t whisper. Don’t look at each other like that. Youfix her.You bring my wife through this, or I swear on everything holy and unholy, nobody’s making it out of this room tonight.”
The doctor glanced up, his eyes wide, then back down. Good. Let ‘em know. I wasn’t bluffing.
My chest rose and fell heavily, each breath feeling like it could be my last with her. I wasn’t just angry. I was feral, undone. The only thing keeping me from tearing through the city right now and putting a bullet in everyone I saw was the sight of Stormi’s chest rising and falling, faint but there.
I took a shaky step closer, my voice breaking even though I tried to sound hard. “You don’t get to leave me, Stormi. Not like this. Not when I just got you. Not when we finally got everything to lose. You fight; you hear me? You fight cause I’ll burn this whole world down if you don’t.”
The beeping sped up. Nurses moved quick. Somebody said, “We’ve got him; baby’s out!”
For one second, I let my eyes shift to the tiny, fragile cry that filled the room. My son, my flesh and blood, had made his grand entrance into this world.
But then I looked back at Stormi looking pale and still. Too still for my liking.
“Stormi!” My voice cracked like a whip. “Baby, open your eyes. Give me something. A squeeze, a blink, I don’t care. Just… don’t leave me.”
The rage boiled so hot inside me it felt like my veins were on fire. Whoever pulled that trigger? Whoever thought they could take her from me? They already signed their death warrant.
But right now, I needed her to live long enough to give me permission to finish it. The sound hit me like a shotgun blast. That flatline. That long, ugly scream from the machine that said my whole world just stopped breathing.
“No!” My roar shook the damn room. “No, she’s not gone! Bring her back!”
The doctor shouted orders. “Code Blue! Chest compressions!” And nurses swarmed her, hands pressing on Stormi’s chest, voices overlapping. None of it sounded fast enough like the room had started moving in slow motion.
“Don’t touch her like that!” I lunged forward, my hands trembling, fighting the urge to rip them off her. “She ain’t some practice, dummy! That’s my wife!Do it right! Save her!”
“Sir, you need to step back.”
“Say that again and I’ll put you through that wall.” My voice was raw, and my whole body was shaking with fury. “If she dies, you all die. So do your fucking job.”
They kept pumping, kept shocking her, the machine beeping, stuttering, going silent again. My chest caved in with it.
I pressed my fists to my head, teeth grinding so hard it felt like they’d crack. “Stormi, don’t you leave me. Don’t you fucking leave me. You hear me?!” My throat burned, voice cracking. “We ain’t done yet, baby. You promised me forever. Don’t you break that promise now.”
The monitor shrieked again as it flatlined. Something inside me snapped. I slammed my fist against the counter so hard the instruments rattled. “Work, damn it! Shock her again! Don’t you stop!”
The doctor’s voice shook, but he barked, “Charging! Clear!”
Stormi’s body jolted, her chest rising off the table, then falling limp. Nothing.
