Chapter 2 - The TransferThe ambulance did not use its siren.
That should have comforted me.
Instead, the silence felt dangerous.
I lay strapped to the stretcher with an oxygen mask against my face, listening to the wheels hum beneath us while Dr. Sloan monitored the baby’s heartbeat from the seat beside me. Adrian sat on my other side, his hand locked around mine, his eyes never leaving the monitor.
Every dip in the rhythm made his jaw tighten.
Every recovery made him breathe again.
I had never seen him helpless before.
Adrian Moretti did not wait. He did not hope. He acted. He moved people, money, power, entire neighborhoods if necessary. When our marriage was good, that certainty had felt like shelter.
When our marriage broke, it felt like a cage.
Now, in the back of a private ambulance moving through Chicago under a false route, it felt like the only thing standing between me and whatever hunted us.
Dr. Sloan adjusted the fetal monitor. “Sienna, I need you to stay calm.”
“I’m trying.”
“I know.” Her voice softened. “But stress can make the contractions worse.”
Adrian looked at her. “She’s in labor?”
“Not active labor yet. But her body is reacting.”
“To the poisoning?” he asked.
“To stress, possible placental irritation, and whatever compound she was exposed to.”
The word compound sounded clean.
Too clean.
It made the whole thing feel clinical, like a lab result instead of someone slipping death into my life one small dose at a time.
Adrian turned back to me. “Tell me everything.”
I looked at Dr. Sloan.
She hesitated, then said, “You need to know. If someone is still exposing her, we need to identify how.”
I closed my eyes.
The first sign had been bruising.
Tiny marks on my arms. My legs. Places I did not remember bumping. Then came nosebleeds in the morning, dizzy spells, headaches that arrived without warning. I blamed pregnancy. I blamed exhaustion. I blamed the fear of being alone.
Then one night, I found a smear of blood on my pillow and could not explain it.
“I thought I was losing her,” I whispered.
Adrian’s fingers tightened around mine.
“I went to Rebecca. She ran tests. She told me something was wrong with my clotting. I changed my diet, stopped taking supplements, threw away anything delivered to my apartment.”
“What was delivered?” Adrian asked.
“Groceries. Tea. Prenatal vitamins. Once, flowers.”
His eyes narrowed. “From who?”
“No card.”
“Describe them.”
“White roses.”
The effect was immediate.
Adrian’s face went blank.
Not confused.
Recognizing.
“What?” I asked.
He said nothing.
“Adrian.”
His gaze moved to Nico, who sat near the rear doors with a phone pressed to his ear. Nico must have heard too, because his expression darkened.
“What does white roses mean?” I demanded.
Adrian leaned closer. “It may mean nothing.”
“You don’t get to do that anymore.”
His eyes returned to mine.
For the first time, I saw shame there.
“White roses are used by my family when someone is being warned to stay silent.”
My blood turned cold.
“Your family?”
He did not flinch.
“My father’s generation. Not mine.”
“Your father is dead.”
“Yes.”
But the way he said it made my stomach drop.
Before I could ask more, the monitor let out a sharp sound.
Dr. Sloan leaned forward. “Turn her on her side.”
The paramedic helped roll me gently. Pain pulled across my abdomen, and I cried out before I could stop myself.
Adrian stood so fast the equipment rattled.
“Do something,” he snapped.
Dr. Sloan looked up, calm but firm. “Mr. Moretti, sit down or get out.”
For one wild second, I thought he might argue.
Then he sat.
The baby’s heartbeat dipped again.
This time, it stayed low.
Dr. Sloan’s voice sharpened. “How far are we?”
“Six minutes,” the driver called back.
“We may not have six.”
Adrian’s phone vibrated.
He ignored it.
It vibrated again.
Nico looked at the screen and went still. “Boss.”
Adrian did not take his eyes off me. “Not now.”
“You need to see this.”
Nico handed him the phone.
Adrian read whatever was on the screen.
I watched the blood leave his face.
“What is it?” I asked.
He did not answer.
“Adrian!”
He turned the phone toward me.
It was a photo.
Taken from across the street outside the clinic.
Me on the stretcher.
Adrian beside me.
His hand wrapped around mine.
Under the image was one sentence.
Congratulations on the heir.
My heart stopped.
Dr. Sloan reached for the IV bag. “Sienna, breathe.”
But I could not breathe.
Because only a handful of people had known I was pregnant.
Only one person had known what I was carrying.
Not just Adrian’s child.
His daughter.
The first Moretti daughter born in forty years.
Adrian looked at Nico. “Trace it.”
“Already started.”
“Lock down the hospital floor.”
“Done.”
“Find the man in the gray coat.”
“On it.”
I barely heard them.
The monitor screamed again.
Dr. Sloan’s hand moved over my stomach.
“Her heart rate is not recovering.”
Adrian turned back to the doctor. “What does that mean?”
“It means we deliver if it stays like this.”
A strange peace came over me.
Not because I was not afraid.
Because I was too afraid to feel anything else.
I looked at Adrian.
“If something happens to me—”
“No.”
“Listen to me.”
“No.”
I pulled my hand free from his.
That made him stop.
“If something happens to me, you protect her from your family.”
His expression cracked. “Sienna—”
“Promise me.”
The ambulance turned sharply.
Sirens sounded ahead of us now, but not ours. Police escorts. Adrian’s world bending around him again.
I grabbed his sleeve.
“Promise.”
His eyes shone with something I had never seen there before.
Terror.
“I promise,” he said. “On my life. On my name. On everything I have left.”
The ambulance doors opened before I could answer.
Cold air rushed in.
Hospital lights blinded me.
People shouted medical words above me as they pulled the stretcher out and ran.
Adrian stayed with me until a set of double doors blocked him.
He tried to follow.
A nurse stopped him. “You can’t go in.”
For one second, I thought he would tear the doors off their hinges.
Instead, he looked over her shoulder at me.
“Sienna!”
I turned my head.
He stood in the hall, surrounded by doctors, guards, and the wreckage of every secret between us.
“I believe you,” he said.
May you like
Then the doors closed.
And I was alone with the sound of my daughter’s failing heartbeat.
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