Chapter 3
### Part 3
Callum did not walk into the lake house.
He stormed in like a man who had left fear behind on the highway and carried only rage through the door.
Two paramedics came behind him with a gurney. A county deputy followed. Then another. The bright white lights from the emergency vehicles flashed through the tall windows and cut across the gold decorations, making the whole room look suddenly cheap.
Callum saw me on the floor.
His face broke.
For one second, the fury vanished, and he looked like a man watching his entire life collapse.
Then he dropped beside me.
“Arden,” he said, pressing his jacket gently against the side of my head. “Look at me. Stay with me, sweetheart. Stay with me.”
“I tried to get the keys,” I whispered.
“Forget the keys.”
“They stole it.”
“I know.”
His voice shook, but his hands were careful.
The paramedics moved fast. One checked my blood pressure. One asked how far along I was. One pressed a monitor against my belly and listened for our baby.
I held my breath until I heard it.
A heartbeat.
Fast. Uneven. But there.
Callum bent his forehead against mine.
“There he is,” he whispered. “There’s our boy.”
My father stepped forward then, suddenly wearing the soft voice he used with bankers and church people.
“Officer, this was an accident,” he said. “My daughter has been emotional lately. She tripped near the table, and the vase fell when she grabbed at it.”
The deputy looked at him, then at the broken ceramic scattered across the floor, then at me.
My mother nodded quickly.
“Pregnancy has made her unstable,” she added. “We were trying to help her calm down.”
Sable stood up so fast her chair tipped behind her.
“You liar.”
My father pointed at her. “Stay out of family business.”
Callum rose slowly.
I had seen my husband angry before. I had seen him frustrated with contractors, sharp with lawyers, protective when my mother pushed too far.
But I had never seen this.
This was colder.
He looked at my father as if Boone Vale had become a file he intended to close permanently.
“Do not speak again,” Callum said.
My father blinked. “Excuse me?”
Callum pointed toward the ceiling.
A small black camera sat in the corner near the vaulted beam, aimed directly at the catering area.
“This venue has surveillance,” he said. “My company uses the same security contractor for two commercial sites. The coordinator already gave deputies access. So unless the camera had a moral failure, everyone here is about to see exactly what happened.”
My mother’s face drained.
Lyric stopped moving.
She had almost reached the kitchen hallway. One hand was on the wall. The other clutched her purse.
The second deputy stepped into her path.
“Ma’am,” he said, “stay where you are.”
Lyric’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.
For the first time in my life, my sister looked at me without confidence.
The event coordinator, a trembling woman in a black dress, approached the deputy with a tablet. Her voice was barely above a whisper.
“I pulled the last twenty minutes.”
The deputy watched.
The room watched his face.
Nobody breathed.
He looked up slowly at my mother.
“Mrs. Vale,” he said, “place your hands where I can see them.”
My mother made a small sound, not quite a sob.
“It was heat of the moment,” she said. “She provoked me.”
Callum laughed once. It was a terrible sound.
“She asked for her own keys.”
The paramedics lifted me onto the gurney. Pain ripped through my abdomen, and I grabbed Callum’s wrist.
“Don’t leave me.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
As they rolled me toward the doors, I saw Ryker’s mother standing near the gift table, her diamond bracelet hanging loose around her wrist. She looked at Lyric with disgust so open it almost startled me.
Ryker stepped away from my sister.
Lyric noticed.
“Ryker,” she pleaded. “Baby, wait. This is complicated.”
His mother’s voice cut through the room.
“Complicated is forgetting flowers. This is criminal.”
Lyric’s eyes filled with tears, but even then, she was crying for herself.
Not me.
Never me.
Outside, the air smelled like lake water, wet gravel, and exhaust from the ambulance. The sky had gone purple at the edges. I remember thinking it was beautiful in a distant, unreal way.
Callum climbed into the ambulance beside me. He kept one hand locked around mine as the doors closed.
Through the small rear window, I saw my mother being turned around by the deputy. My father shouted something I could not hear. Lyric stood stiffly near the entrance while the second deputy removed my keys from her purse and held them up.
My keys caught the flashing lights.
For one strange second, they looked like evidence in a life that no longer belonged to me.
Then the ambulance pulled away.
The ride to the hospital blurred into sirens, pain, and Callum’s voice telling me to breathe. Every contraction felt wrong. Too early. Too sharp. Too close together.
A paramedic kept checking the monitor.
Callum watched his face.
“What aren’t you saying?” he asked.
The paramedic hesitated.
“The baby’s heart rate is dipping. We’re moving as fast as we can.”
Callum kissed my hand.
I stared at the ceiling of the ambulance and made a promise.
Not to my parents. Not to Lyric. Not even to Callum.
To my son.
“Stay with me,” I whispered. “And I will never let them near you.”
At the hospital, doors flew open. White lights burned overhead. Nurses shouted numbers I did not understand. A doctor leaned over me and said, “Arden, we need to deliver now.”
“Is he going to live?”
She squeezed my shoulder.
“We’re going to fight for both of you.”
As they wheeled me toward surgery, Callum was forced to let go at the double doors.
May you like
His fingers slipped from mine.
That was the last thing I remembered before everything went black.
