"Never."
I hung up and ran.
My father drove. I was too shaky, too furious, too terrified to trust myself behind the wheel. He broke every traffic law in Seattle getting us there. I couldn’t have chosen a better person to be in control right now.
"She'll be fine," he said, the closest thing to comfort I'd ever heard from him. "She's strong. Like your mother."
I couldn't respond. Could only stare at my phone, willing it to ring with good news.
We made it to Swedish in eight minutes.
The ER was chaos. Police everywhere, Angelina's friends being treated, Matvey giving a statement while covered in blood that I prayed wasn't my wife's.
"Where is she?" I demanded.
A nurse tried to stop me. "Sir, you can't?—"
"That's my wife. Where. Is. She?"
"Trauma bay three. But you need to wait."
I didn't wait.
I shoved through the doors and found her.
Angelina, lying on a gurney, pale as death, blood matting her dark hair. Doctors and nurses swarming, calling out vitals and orders I only half understood.
"BP is 110 over 70, heart rate 95, she's stable but unresponsive."
"CT scan, stat, need to rule out intracranial bleeding."
"Get me a trauma panel and type and cross for four units."
"Sir, you can't be in here," someone said, trying to guide me out.
"I'm her husband." My voice didn't sound like my own. "I'm not leaving."
A doctor—older, competent-looking—approached. "Mr. Moretti? I'm Dr. Patterson. Your wife suffered a significant head injury. We're taking her for a CT scan now to check for bleeding or swelling in the brain."
"Is she going to be okay?"
"Her vitals are stable, which is good. But we won't know the extent of the damage until we see the scans." He paused. "There's something else. The blood work came back positive for HCG."
I stared at him blankly. "What?"
"Human chorionic gonadotropin. It's a pregnancy hormone." His expression softened. "Your wife is pregnant. About six weeks along, based on the levels."
The world stopped.
Pregnant.
Angelina was pregnant.
With our baby.
"Is the baby—" I couldn't finish the sentence.
"We'll do an ultrasound once we've addressed the head injury. But her hormone levels are strong. That's a good sign." He squeezed my shoulder. "We're taking good care of her. Both of them."
