Chapter 425
“Get them both!” Dr. Evans shouted, breaking the silence. “Code Blue in Bay 1! Hypoglycemic shock in Bay 2! Move!”
They wheeled the gurneys side by side down the hall.
As they moved, Dallas’s limp hand slipped from the edge of his bed. By some strange chance, it brushed against hers. And in the twilight of her consciousness, a flicker of instinct remained. Her fingers twitched — responding to a recognition too deep for waking thought — and loosely curled around his. It wasn’t a grip of strength. It was a faint, ghostly echo of a bond that refused to be severed.
The nurses, moving to separate them into different bays, paused.
Their hands were clasped.
“Leave them,” Dr. Evans said quietly. “Wheel them in tandem.”
They continued down the hall as one — two gurneys moving in unison, linked by a grip that defied unconsciousness. Blood from Dallas’s arm trailed on the floor and stained Eliza’s fingertips.
At the end of the hall, the elevator doors opened.
Jeannine Koch stepped out.
She saw them. She saw the blood. She saw the hands.
She stopped, her hand flying to her mouth.
“My god,” she whispered. “What have we done?”
Jeannine Koch sat in the Chief Physician’s office, the leather chair creaking as she leaned forward. The room smelled of old paper and sterilized air.
On the mahogany desk in front of her lay two files.
To her left: Dallas Koch. Patient ID: 8940. Diagnosis: End-stage renal failure. Class IV heart failure. Reproductive status: Sterile.
To her right: Eliza Koch. Patient ID: 9921. Diagnosis: Pregnancy, approximately 8 weeks. Fetal heartbeat detected — weak.
Jeannine looked from one to the other. Her hands, usually steady as a surgeon’s, were trembling.
“It’s a miracle,” Dr. Evans said, wiping his glasses with a microfiber cloth. “Given Mr. Koch’s condition — the progression of the damage was such that his fertility was declining but not completely zero months ago. This conception must have been an incredibly narrow window, a one-in-a-million chance before the neurotoxin damage became total.”
Jeannine reached out and touched the ultrasound image attached to Eliza’s file. A tiny, grainy gray dot.
The heir. The future of the Koch dynasty.
“Does Dallas know?” Jeannine asked, her voice sharp.
“No,” Evans said, shaking his head. “He’s been sedated to stabilize his heart rate. And Eliza — she has explicitly forbidden me from telling him. She believes it will put his recovery at risk.”
Jeannine closed Eliza’s file. Then she closed Dallas’s.
She sat back, her eyes narrowing, the calculator in her mind beginning to turn.
If Dallas knew — he was convinced he was a dead man walking. Convinced he was a curse to everyone he loved. He wouldn’t see this child as a miracle. He would see it as a trap. He would think he was burdening Eliza with a fatherless child, chaining her to his ghost. He might force her to terminate it. Or worse, he might use it as another reason to hate himself, knowing he wouldn’t live to see it born.
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