Chapter 10 - Shattered Vows
Late that evening, after Marcus had temporarily stepped out to manage the press who had caught wind of the hospital lockdown, Lucian used a private keycard acquired from a compromised hospital administrator to enter Room 412.
The room was dim, lit only by the golden glow of a single streetlamp filtering through the blinds.
Serena was awake.
She sat propped up against the pillows, her face pale as parchment, dark bruises under her brown eyes. She was looking at a framed ultrasound picture resting on the bedside table.
When the door clicked shut, she didn't jump. She didn't scream.
She slowly turned her head and looked at Lucian.
Her expression was what shattered him. There was no fury. No tears. No betrayal. There was only absolute, terrifying emptiness—the way one looks at a stranger on a crowded subway train.
"Serena," Lucian whispered, falling to his knees beside the bed, his head bowed, his hands hovering over the white sheets, afraid to touch her. "I'm sorry. I am so sorry. I will spend every single second of the rest of my life making this right. I will give you everything. The company, the estates, my life—anything. Just don't shut me out."
Serena looked down at the crown of his dark head.
"Do you remember what you promised me on our wedding day, Lucian?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Lucian choked back a sob. "I promised to protect you. To honor you above all others."
"You promised that if the world ever caught fire, you would be the shield between the flames and our home."
She lifted her left hand.
Slowly, methodically, she pulled the five-carat diamond ring from her finger. The band was loose; she had lost so much weight during the high-risk pregnancy.
She dropped the ring into his open, trembling palm.
"You weren't the shield, Lucian," she said quietly. "You were the arsonist."
Lucian stared at the ring in his hand, feeling as though his ribs were being crushed beneath a hydraulic press. "Serena, please... Julian needs a father..."
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"He has a father," Serena replied, her eyes flashing with a sudden, lethal resolve. "A dead one. Because the man who watched his son suffocate from a penthouse in Milan died to us yesterday."
***
