Chapter 2 - The Sudden Call
The storm over Elliott Bay tightened its grip on Seattle by early afternoon. Inside the high-floor glass sanctuary of Langston Engineering, the silence was broken only by the steady, rhythmic click of Carter’s pen against the heavy mahogany of his desk.
He hadn't touched the divorce decree since Harrison left. The document lay flat, its black ink dry, its blank signature line staring back at him like an open wound.
"Mr. Langston?"
Vivian, his executive assistant of seven years, stood in the doorway. She was a woman who prided herself on never showing alarm, but her posture was unusually rigid, her phone held tightly in her right hand.
"Not now, Vivian," Carter said without looking up. "Tell the board I’ll review the quarterly projections before six."
"It isn't the board, sir," Vivian said, her voice dropping an octave. "It’s Swedish Medical Center. The charge nurse from the high-risk maternal emergency unit. She says... she says she’s holding the emergency contact chart for Lauren Langston."
The pen snapped between Carter’s fingers.
The plastic barrel cracked with a sharp, violent pop, black ink pooling across his palm and staining the edge of the unsigned divorce paper. Carter didn't even notice. The world narrowed down to the sound of his own pulse hammering against his ribs.
"What did she say?" Carter stood up so quickly his heavy leather chair crashed backward against the floor-to-ceiling glass.
"She said Mrs. Langston was admitted twenty minutes ago," Vivian stammered, stepping back. "Severe preeclampsia symptoms. High-risk premature labor—"
Carter didn't hear the rest. He was already past her, tearing through the glass doors of his executive suite, his dark suit jacket left hanging over his chair, the black ink still wet on his palm.
The drive from downtown to First Hill usually took fifteen minutes in light traffic. Carter made it in six. He drove his dark Mercedes like a man running out of oxygen, cutting through rain-slicked lanes, running yellow lights, ignoring the blare of horns around him.
Preeclampsia. High-risk labor.
Eight months. She had been gone for eight months.
In his mind, she was living quietly, peacefully, far away from the oppressive shadow of his life. He had envisioned her painting, reading by an open window, resting. He had never once envisioned her alone in an emergency room, her life hanging in the balance.
When he burst through the automatic sliding doors of the hospital’s main entrance, his appearance was so wild, so stripped of his usual polished composure, that the security guard at the desk immediately reached for his belt.
"Lauren Langston," Carter demanded, slamming both hands onto the triage reception counter. His hair was wet with rain, his white dress shirt open at the collar, black ink smudged across his skin. "Where is she?"
The triage nurse didn't flinch. "Sir, you need to calm down. Only immediate family—"
"I am her husband!" The word tore out of his throat before he could stop it. For eight months he had avoided the title. Now he hurled it like a shield. "I am Carter Langston. Where is my wife?"
A doctor in blue scrubs stepped out from behind the double doors of the trauma wing. Her badge read Dr. Elena Cruz, Maternal-Fetal Medicine. Her face was pale, lined with the intense focus of someone who had spent the last hour fighting a clock.
"Mr. Langston?" Dr. Cruz asked, assessing him with sharp, unblinking eyes.
"Is she alive?" Carter’s voice cracked. The billionaire who controlled half the city's skyline looked suddenly frail, stripped down to bare, terrified humanity. "Tell me she's alive."
"She is alive, Mr. Langston. But she is in severe distress," Dr. Cruz said quietly, gesturing for him to follow her as she pushed through the double doors. "Lauren was brought in by an ambulance after a neighbor found her collapsed in her hallway. Her blood pressure is dangerously high, and she is in active, advanced labor."
"Labor?" Carter stopped dead in the sterile corridor. The sharp smell of antiseptic filled his lungs like frost. "She’s... she’s sick? Is it a tumor? What labor?"
Dr. Cruz stopped and turned to him, her expression softening with a mixture of shock and profound pity.
"Mr. Langston... didn't you know?"
"Know what?"
"Your wife is thirty-two weeks pregnant," Dr. Cruz said clearly. "With twins."
The hallway seemed to tilt. The fluorescent lights above burned blindingly bright, buzzing in his ears like a swarm of insects.
Twins.
"Twins," Carter repeated. The word had no meaning. It was a sound without shape.
"A boy and a girl," Dr. Cruz continued, her hand resting firmly on his arm to steady him. "She has been managing a high-risk pregnancy entirely on her own. But her body can't sustain it any longer. We need to perform an emergency Cesarean section within the hour, or we risk losing both her and the infants."
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Carter felt his knees give way slightly before his pride caught him. Eight months. For eight months she had carried two tiny lives inside her body—his blood, his children—while he sat in his empty mansion, nursing his bruised ego and signing divorce papers.
"Take me to her," Carter whispered. "Please."
