Chapter 6 - Labor and Retribution
The microphone slipped from my fingers, clattering onto the stage with a dull thud.
I gasped, doubling over as a violent contraction seized my entire midsection. The room spun for a fraction of a second, the adrenaline that had kept me upright finally giving way to the sheer physical reality of what my body was enduring.
"Evelyn!" Eleanor’s voice lost all its icy composure. Her hands caught my elbows, supporting my weight with surprising strength. "Marcus! Call the paramedics! Now!"
"Water," I whispered, clutching the ermine wrap as another wave of pressure crushed my pelvis. "My water broke."
Within seconds, the remaining private security cleared a path through the exiting crowd. The two plainclothes detectives who had remained by the stage assisted Marcus in guiding me to a low velvet couch in the VIP lounge behind the curtain.
I closed my eyes, breathing through the searing ache. The stress, the confrontation, the public execution of Julian’s empire—it had triggered labor four weeks early.
"Breathe, child," Eleanor said. She was kneeling on the carpet beside the couch, heedless of her couture gown touching the floor. She took my cold hand between her two warm, manicured ones, squeezing tightly. "You did what you had to do. The battle is won. Now you focus on the boy."
Outside, the wail of sirens echoed from Fifth Avenue, cutting through the autumn night.
Ten minutes later, I was being wheeled out on a gurney through the rear service entrance, surrounded by four uniformed officers ensuring no paparazzi or reporters could push past the velvet ropes. Marcus Vance walked alongside the gurney, his phone pressed to his ear.
"The federal judge just signed the emergency freeze on all of Julian's domestic and offshore accounts," Marcus said to me, leaning close so only I could hear. "Dr. Reynolds was picked up at her clinic in SoHo ten minutes ago. She's already singing to save her own medical license. Julian is facing twenty-five years minimum for poisoning and conspiracy."
I nodded weakly, the lights of the ambulance flashing red and blue across the night sky as they loaded me into the back.
Eleanor climbed in beside me, refusing to leave my side.
Meanwhile, three miles downtown at the Manhattan Detention Complex, Julian Sterling sat on a cold steel bench in a holding cell, his tuxedo jacket stripped from him, his face bruised from where he had resisted arrest.
He lunged at the bars as a corrections officer walked past.
"I need my phone call!" Julian screamed, rattling the steel. "My mother has power of attorney! She'll clear this up! Get me my lawyer!"
The officer looked at him with bored indifference, sliding a plastic cup of lukewarm tap water through the slot. "Your mother just executed a corporate declaration removing you as CEO, Mr. Sterling. And your personal attorney resigned ten minutes ago. Sit down and wait for the magistrate."
Julian stared at the water in the plastic cup, his hands shaking violently as the reality of his new world closed around him like a tomb.
At New York-Presbyterian Hospital, the ambulance doors flew open. I was rushed through the emergency trauma doors into the bright, sterile white of the delivery ward.
The monitors beeped rapidly, the nurses moving with quiet efficiency around my bed. Another massive contraction ripped through me, but through the pain, a feeling of absolute, unbreakable peace settled over my chest.
The monster was locked in a cage.
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My baby was safe.
And as the doctor prepped the delivery room, Eleanor Sterling stood outside the door, guarding the threshold like an iron sentinel, ensuring that no one from Julian's past would ever touch us again.
