Chapter 1
Adrian took a half-step toward Isabella’s room, his chest tightening as if an iron band were constricting his lungs. Every instinct as a husband and a founding partner of his legacy screamed at him to push those doors open, to fall to his knees beside the woman who had stood by him when his name was nothing more than a whispered threat in the docks.
"Adrian..."
The scream from Room Three pierced the fluorescent-lit corridor, sharp, terrified, and absolute. It was Lena’s voice, breaking through the hum of medical equipment.
"Mr. Voss!" the nurse from Room Three called out again, her voice urgent. "She’s panicking. Her heart rate is dropping. She’s calling for you!"
From the opposite end, Matteo Rinaldi stepped between Adrian and Isabella’s doors. The bodyguard’s face was carved from granite, his eyes cold and analytical.
"Boss," Matteo said quietly, his voice cutting through the chaos. "If you go to your wife first, Lena might lose the child. But if you go to Lena, Isabella will know you weren't just running late from the docks."
Adrian gripped the collar of his damp shirt, his knuckles whitening. "Matteo, shut up."
"I'm just doing my job, boss," Matteo replied without blinking. "You built an empire on compartmentalization. You kept the business separate from the home, and you kept the mistress separate from the wife. But empires fall when the walls crack. And right now, both sides of your life are bleeding out under the same roof."
Adrian didn't hesitate any longer. He turned his back on Isabella’s room and strode into Room Three.
Lena was thrashing against the sheets, her face ashen, her fingers clawing at the IV line in her arm. When she saw him, she lunged upward, sobbing uncontrollably.
"You came," she gasped, burying her face in his shoulder as he sat on the edge of the bed. "I thought you walked away. I saw you looking at her."
"Who?" Adrian lied, his voice dropping into the smooth, chilling register he used when negotiating million-dollar shipping contracts.
"The woman on the stretcher," Lena whispered, her eyes wide with a sudden, feral panic. "She looked at you like she owned you. Adrian... who was that?"
Before Adrian could answer, the attending physician rushed in, snapping on a pair of latex gloves. "Mr. Voss, we need you outside. Now. The internal bleeding is worse than we thought. We have to take her into emergency surgery immediately."
"Save her," Adrian ordered, his voice echoing with the authority of a man who owned half the city.
As orderlies wheeled Lena’s bed toward the surgical wing, Adrian stepped back out into the hallway. He expected to find Matteo waiting. Instead, standing fifty feet away, leaning against the wall outside the obstetrics ward, was Isabella.
She wasn't crying. She wasn't screaming.
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Isabella Voss looked at her husband with an expression so devastatingly calm that Adrian felt his blood run cold. She had changed into a hospital gown, her dark hair tied back loosely, her pale hand resting gently over a rounded stomach that suddenly made complete, agonizing sense.
"Adrian," Isabella said softly, her voice carrying across the empty corridor. "Are you going to introduce me to the other Mrs. Voss, or should I wait until after the surgery?"
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