Chapter 7 - The Toxic Confession
While the surgical team worked with mechanical precision behind the drape, Marcus leaned down, kissing my forehead, whispering continuous words of love and encouragement. But his phone, switched to vibrate inside his scrub pocket, buzzed frantically.
He pulled it out, intending to silence it, but stopped when he saw the caller ID: *Chief of Police Miller*.
Marcus answered, holding the phone tightly to his ear. "Talk to me, Miller."
"Mr. Sterling, you need to hear this," Miller’s voice crackled through the speaker, urgent and strained. "We were transporting Isabella to the central precinct. During processing, she suffered a violent panic attack. She confessed that she didn't act alone inside the hospital. Raymond had a backup operative planted on your floor."
Marcus’s entire body went rigid. "What did you say?"
"She claims Raymond hired a rogue orderly to tamper with the hospital's primary backup power generator in the basement. If the police came for Raymond, the operative was paid to cut the main grid to the surgical wing, triggering a blackout before you could deliver the baby."
Marcus’s eyes widened with sheer horror. "The surgery has already started!"
*CLACK.*
Without warning, every light in the operating room vanished.
The rhythmic hum of the life support machines died instantly. The room plunged into pitch-black darkness, swallowed by the deafening silence of failed electronics.
Gasps of shock echoed from the surgical team.
"Power failure!" Dr. Campbell shouted in the dark. "Switch to emergency battery backups! Where are the flashlights?"
"The battery backups aren't kicking in!" the anesthesiologist cried out, panic edging his voice. "The transfer switch was manually tripped! The monitors are dead!"
I felt a cold wave of terror wash over me. I was paralyzed from the chest down, cut open on a surgical table in total darkness, with my baby halfway out of my womb.
"Khloe, I'm right here!" Marcus’s voice boomed through the dark.
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He didn't panic. He pulled out his high-powered tactical phone light, illuminating the surgical field with a brilliant, steady white beam. Then, he unclipped a second emergency light from his belt—something he always carried as part of his executive security protocols—and handed it directly to Dr. Campbell.
"Keep operating," Marcus ordered, his voice steady as steel. "Do not stop. I am holding the light. Finish the delivery."
