Chapter 11 - THE CHILD BORN DURING THE WAR
Marcus underwent surgery while Khloe watched through a waiting-room window.
The bullet had missed his heart and major arteries.
Doctors expected him to survive.
Khloe’s body responded to the stress differently.
Her contractions began at six the next morning.
Nathaniel attempted to stop them.
The baby’s heart rate dropped again.
At thirty-one weeks, waiting became more dangerous than delivery.
Khloe signed the consent form herself.
She refused general anesthesia.
“I want to hear my child.”
Nathaniel held her hand as the surgeons began.
Marcus remained unconscious two floors away.
Victoria was in federal custody.
Owen had survived the fall but suffered multiple fractures.
Isabella awaited trial in a secure medical unit.
Lorenzo Rossi had disappeared.
For the first time in weeks, no one inside the operating room worked for the Thorne family.
The baby was delivered six minutes later.
A girl.
She made no sound.
Khloe looked toward the doctors.
“Why is she not crying?”
A neonatal team moved around the tiny body.
Nathaniel stayed near Khloe’s head.
“Give them a moment.”
The monitor remained frighteningly quiet.
Then a thin cry filled the room.
Khloe began sobbing.
The baby weighed less than four pounds.
She was placed on breathing support and moved to intensive care.
Khloe saw her for only a few seconds.
Dark hair.
Tiny fists.
A red mouth open in protest.
“She is angry,” Nathaniel said.
“Good.”
Khloe closed her eyes.
“Angry girls survive.”
Marcus woke that evening.
His first question was about Khloe.
His second was about the baby.
Nathaniel showed him a photograph.
Marcus touched the screen.
“What is her name?”
“Khloe has not decided.”
He nodded.
The hesitation mattered.
The old Marcus would have assumed the family name belonged to him.
The man in the hospital bed understood that fatherhood did not begin with authority.
Khloe visited him the following day in a wheelchair.
They looked at each other across the room.
“I saw the hotel recording,” she said.
“I know.”
“You went alone anyway.”
“Yes.”
“That was reckless.”
“Yes.”
“You could have died.”
“Yes.”
Khloe looked toward his bandages.
Marcus did not ask for praise.
He did not describe the sacrifice as proof of love.
He simply accepted what he had done.
“Our daughter is in intensive care,” Khloe said.
“Our?”
She studied him.
“You are her father.”
“That does not answer what happens to us.”
“No.”
Marcus nodded.
“I will wait.”
Khloe had never heard him say those words without negotiation.
Before she could respond, Nathaniel entered.
Lorenzo Rossi had been found.
He was inside a private airport hangar.
He was not alone.
He had Victoria’s attorney, two board members and a newborn transport incubator.
May you like
The destination programmed into the flight plan was Switzerland.
Lorenzo still intended to take the baby.
