Chapter 3

The VIP wing of NewYork-Presbyterian was quiet at this hour. The halls were empty, the floors polished to a mirror shine that reflected the harsh fluorescent lights.

Helena stood outside Julian's room, her back against the wall. The admitting doctor had kicked her out while they ran tests, leaving her alone with her thoughts and the lingering smell of rubbing alcohol.

She pulled her phone from her pocket, scrolling to her contact list. Sloane Adler, her best friend and the only person outside this mess who understood. Her thumb hovered over the call button, but she hesitated. What would she even say? "Hey, my mother-in-law sabotaged my birth control, my husband is with his ex, and I just asked for a divorce"? It sounded like a bad soap opera.

She shoved the phone back in her pocket and pushed off the wall, needing to move. She walked down the corridor, her footsteps echoing softly. At the end of the hall, a small alcove housed a vending machine and a window overlooking the East River.

As she rounded the corner, she heard a voice.

It was low, hissing, and unmistakable. Debora.

Helena froze, pressing herself flat against the wall, just out of sight.

"I don't care how you do it, Brenda," Debora snarled into her phone. "The plan failed. That idiot woman found the holes."

Helena's heart stopped. She pressed a hand over her mouth, forcing herself to breathe through her nose.

"She has to get pregnant," Debora continued, her voice vibrating with a manic intensity. "Julian's match still hasn't been found. We need the umbilical cord blood. The stem cells are his only chance. Do you understand? Make it happen."

The world tilted sideways.

Helena gripped the edge of the wall, her fingernails scraping against the plaster. It wasn't about an heir. It wasn't about securing the Velasquez line. She was just a vessel. A walking incubator for spare parts. Debora wanted a baby so she could harvest its stem cells to save Julian.

A wave of nausea rolled through her, hot and violent. She swallowed hard, fighting the urge to vomit right there on the hospital floor.

Debora's heels clicked as she walked away, the sound fading down the stairwell.

Helena stood there for a long moment, her legs trembling. Any lingering doubt, any tiny sliver of hope that maybe-just maybe-Dante was simply misled, evaporated. This family didn't see her as a person. She was livestock.

She turned blindly, her mind spinning, and found herself in a deserted corridor. The signs on the wall read "Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation." She leaned against the wall near an empty nurse's station, trying to catch her breath, when her eyes caught a flicker of movement on one of the small security monitors on the desk. She leaned closer.

She looked inside.

Dante was there.

He wasn't on the phone. He wasn't pacing like a CEO. He was down on one knee on the linoleum floor.

Sitting in a wheelchair was Kinsley Spencer. She was wearing a thin hospital gown, her pale blonde hair pulled back in a messy bun. She looked fragile, beautiful, like a porcelain doll that had been broken and glued back together.

Dante's hands were wrapped around Kinsley's calf. He was massaging her leg, his thumbs working the muscle with a tenderness that Helena had never felt from him. Kinsley smiled, reaching out to run her fingers through Dante's dark hair. He looked up at her, and the expression on his face hit Helena like a physical blow.

It was devotion. Pure, unadulterated worship.

Helena stared at them, the image burning into her retinas. She thought of the condoms, of Debora's plot, of the black card thrown on the nightstand. She thought of the two years she had spent trying to be the perfect wife, invisible and obedient.

She didn't cry. The tears wouldn't come. It was as if the well inside her had run completely dry, leaving nothing but a hollow, echoing cavern.

She backed away from the desk, her footsteps silent. She turned and walked down the dark corridor, her posture rigid, her face blank.

When she reached Julian's room, the doctor was just coming out. "He's stable, Mrs. Velasquez. We're moving him to a regular room. You can see him in the morning."

"Thank you," Helena heard herself say. The voice sounded distant, like it belonged to someone else.

She walked out of the hospital into the freezing night air. The wind hit her face, sharp and biting, but she didn't flinch. She stood on the pavement, staring at the city lights, feeling absolutely nothing.

And in that nothingness, she found perfect clarity. Her heart wasn't broken. It was dead. And a dead heart couldn't feel pain. It could only plan.