Chapter 2 - The Whispered Confession
The suite doors flew open, and a flood of medical staff poured into the room with a gurney.
"Fetal heart monitor, now!" Dr. Bennett shouted, instantly assessing my position on the floor.
Nurses swarmed around me, their hands gentle but urgently shifting me onto the firm stretcher.
Marcus stood up slowly, never taking his eyes off Isabella, who was now crawling backward toward the door.
"Don't move an inch," Marcus growled, his voice dropped to a lethal register.
Two hospital security guards appeared in the open doorway, blocking Isabella's only exit.
"Marcus, please, let me explain," Isabella pleaded, her voice rising in frantic desperation. "You don't understand what happened!"
"I saw your heel on my pregnant wife's body," Marcus said, his fists trembling at his sides.
Dr. Bennett adjusted the Doppler transducer over my stomach, his brow furrowed in intense concentration.
A loud, static-filled thumping suddenly filled the room—the rapid, fluttering heartbeat of our child.
"Fetal tachycardia," Dr. Bennett said grimly. "The baby is under severe distress, but the heart is beating."
Tears spilled over my temples as relief broke through the agonizing terror in my chest.
"Khloe, stay still," Marcus said, brushing the damp hair from my forehead as his eyes welled up.
I caught his wrist, digging my fingernails into his sleeve with everything I had left.
"Marcus... the camera," I whispered, my voice cracked and dry.
Marcus frowned, his brow pulling down as he followed my shaking finger toward the ceiling.
He spotted the blinking red lens nestled deep within the matte-black casing of the smoke detector.
His gaze snapped back to Isabella, whose back was pressed flat against the wall beneath two burly guards.
"Who installed that?" Marcus demanded, his voice dangerously calm.
"I did," a quiet, steady voice spoke from the doorway.
We all turned toward the entrance, where an older man in a tailored dark suit stood holding an open tablet.
It was Arthur Vance, Marcus's estranged older brother and the chief counsel for our family estate.
Isabella looked at Arthur, and her mouth opened in a silent, horrified scream.
"Arthur?" Marcus stared at him, completely blindsided. "What are you doing here?"
"Watching over your wife, little brother, because you were too blind to do it yourself," Arthur said coldly.
Arthur stepped into the room, holding the glowing tablet facing outward so Marcus could see the screen.
On the screen was a live recording, buffering just five minutes in the past.
Arthur tapped the glass, and the room fell into absolute silence as the internal speakers hummed to life.
The video played Isabella walking into my room with a glass of apple juice in her hands.
On the recording, I pushed the glass away, asking why she had come into my private room uninvited.
Then, the audio picked up Isabella's voice, crisp, clear, and dripping with malicious venom.
"You think Marcus loves you, Khloe?" the recorded Isabella laughed on the screen.
"He pity-married you because of the business merger," the recording continued, louder now.
"And just like the brake fluid in your car last month, this baby won't survive the week."
Marcus froze, his entire body locking up as the recorded words hung in the air like poison.
May you like
He turned his head toward Isabella with eyes so dark they looked entirely inhuman.
"What did you say about the brakes?" Marcus asked, his voice shaking with pure murder.
