Chapter 268

The world tilted. The lights blurred into long white streaks. The last thing Cailin saw before the darkness swallowed her was Hilliard’s face — wet with tears, fixed on the trauma room door with the expression of a man watching his own heart being operated on.

Hilliard carried Cailin back to her bed. He laid her down and watched the nurses reattach the monitors, watched the fresh bandages bloom red over her incision.

He touched his shoulder. His fingers came away bloody.

“Mr. Holloway, you need that looked at,” a nurse said, eyeing the bite mark. “It needs to be cleaned and stitched immediately.”

“Don’t touch it,” Hilliard said, his voice so sharp the nurse flinched back. “Leave it.”

He walked out. The physical pain was grounding — the only thing keeping him from putting a bullet in his own head.

He stood guard outside the ICU doors.

Ten minutes later, the elevator dinged.

Jeraldine Holloway stepped out, her heels clicking purposefully on the floor. Behind her, clinging to Jeraldine’s arm like a frightened child, was Charla. A silk scarf was wound around her neck, concealing the bruises Hilliard had left there an hour ago. Her eyes were red and swollen — a perfect performance.

Hilliard felt the temperature in his veins drop to absolute zero.

He stepped into the middle of the hallway, blocking their path. He was a wall of blood-soaked linen and barely contained violence.

“Hilliard,” Jeraldine began, her voice trembling slightly. “We heard — is the child…?”

“Hilliard,” Charla squeaked, stepping out from behind Jeraldine. “I was so worried. I didn’t mean for her to run off, I just—”

Hilliard didn’t blink. He looked at Charla. He looked at the woman he had almost married. The woman who had sent a five-year-old child into a freezer to die.

“Get out,” Hilliard said.

It was not a shout. It was a command delivered with the quiet authority of an executioner.

“Hilliard, be reasonable,” Jeraldine said, placing a hand on his arm. “Charla is family. She’s distraught.”

Hilliard looked at his mother’s hand until she removed it.

“If she is not on that elevator in five seconds,” he said to Jeraldine, his voice never rising, “I will finish what I started in the lobby. And I don’t care who is watching.”

Charla flinched. She looked into his eyes and found no anger there. Only murder.

“Mom, let’s go,” Charla whispered, tugging at Jeraldine’s sleeve. “Please.”

Jeraldine looked at her son. She saw the blood on his shirt, the bite mark on his neck, the absolute stranger standing in his place.

“We’ll be downstairs,” she said stiffly.

They retreated.

Hilliard watched the elevator doors close.

He pulled out his phone. His thumb left a smear of blood across the screen as he dialed Gavin.

“Lock it down,” Hilliard said. “Tell the press Cailin is critical. Tell them Elia’s status is unconfirmed. I want silence. Total silence.”

He turned back to the glass window of the trauma room. Inside, a team of doctors was huddled around a tiny body on a warming table.

“Live,” Hilliard told the glass. “Don’t you dare die on me.”

The beep of the heart monitor was the only clock that mattered.