Chapter 1 - THE FOURTH RING
The fourth ring never came.
A click sounded through the cracked speaker of my phone.
Then my father answered.
"Rebecca?"
Just hearing his voice nearly broke whatever strength I had left.
Carter was still smiling when he lifted the phone higher between us.
"Evening, sir," he said with a mocking little laugh.
"Your daughter seems to think she needs rescuing."
I gripped the edge of the kitchen island as another cramp twisted through me.
The blood on my legs had reached my shoes.
My father heard my breathing change.
His voice sharpened immediately.
"Rebecca, tell me what is happening."
Carter rolled his eyes.
"She bumped into the counter and now she is being dramatic."
I forced my mouth to move.
"Dad, I'm bleeding."
The kitchen went very still.
I swallowed against the metallic taste from my split lip.
"I'm seven months pregnant, and I'm bleeding badly."
My father did not shout.
That was one of the things people misunderstood about him.
The angrier he became, the quieter he sounded.
"Have you called 911?"
I looked at Carter.
Carter looked back at me.
His smile was beginning to fade.
"He broke my phone," I said.
"He won't let me call."
Mrs. Eleanor pushed away from the table.
"That is a lie," she snapped.
My father heard her.
"Who is in the room with you?"
"Carter and Eleanor."
Carter snatched the phone closer to his own mouth.
"Mr. Bennett, I don't know what Rebecca has told you about our marriage, but you need to understand that she has a tendency to exaggerate."
My father said nothing for two seconds.
Then another voice came through the speaker in the background.
It was crisp, professional, and unmistakably official.
"Chief Justice Bennett, Alexandria dispatch has confirmed EMS and police are en route."
Carter stopped breathing.
Mrs. Eleanor's face changed first.
Her mouth opened slightly.
The thin smile disappeared.
My father answered the unseen person beside him.
"Thank you, Daniel."
Then he returned to me.
"Rebecca, sit down if you can do so safely."
I stared at Carter.
He stared at the phone as if it had transformed into something alive.
"Chief Justice?" he whispered.
My father ignored him.
"Do not walk toward either of them."
"Dad..."
"The ambulance is coming."
His voice remained level.
"Stay with me."
Carter looked at me differently now.
Not with concern.
Not with guilt.
With calculation.
He had spent two years insulting the father he had never bothered to meet properly.
My father had attended our courthouse wedding for less than twenty minutes because Carter had insisted on keeping it "small and uncomplicated."
He had worn an old navy jacket, driven himself in his battered Ford pickup, hugged me, and left before Carter's family arrived for dinner.
Carter had decided that told him everything he needed to know.
I had never corrected him.
Now the mistake was standing in front of him.
"Your father is Thomas Bennett?" Carter asked.
I said nothing.
He stepped back from me.
"Chief Justice Thomas Bennett?"
Mrs. Eleanor's eyes darted toward her son.
"Carter, what is he talking about?"
I sank onto one of the kitchen stools because my knees were no longer holding me.
Another stab of pain cut through my abdomen.
I gasped.
My father heard it.
"Rebecca?"
"I'm here."
"Tell me if the pain is constant or coming in waves."
"Waves."
"How much blood?"
I looked down.
Too much.
Far too much.
"A lot."
For the first time, I heard fear under his control.
"All right."
He paused.
"I am on my way."
Carter suddenly reached for the phone.
I pulled it toward my chest.
He froze halfway.
Some instinct finally told him that touching me again would make whatever was coming worse.
"Rebecca," he said softly.
His voice had changed completely.
The screaming husband was gone.
The attorney had arrived.
"We need to be careful about what we're saying right now."
My father heard every word.
"Carter," Dad said.
Carter straightened.
"Sir, I can explain."
"Do not speak to my daughter."
"This is a private family matter."
"It stopped being private when she said she was bleeding and you prevented her from calling emergency services."
Carter's jaw tightened.
"You don't know what happened."
"That is why I have not accused you of anything."
My father's voice became colder.
"But I suggest you stop creating new facts for investigators to examine."
Mrs. Eleanor stepped closer.
"How dare you threaten my son in his own house?"
My father did not even hesitate.
"Ma'am, if my daughter is injured, your son's house is the least important thing in that room."
A siren sounded faintly outside.
Carter turned toward the front windows.
Another siren joined it.
Then a third.
Mrs. Eleanor looked suddenly frightened.
"Why are there so many?"
Carter grabbed his phone from the dining table.
"Don't say anything," he told his mother.
She blinked at him.
"What?"
"Nothing."
His voice dropped.
"You saw her slip."
I stared at him.
He did not look at me.
"Carter," Mrs. Eleanor whispered.
"You saw her slip," he repeated.
My father heard that too.
So did I.
Someone pounded on the front door.
"Alexandria Fire and Rescue!"
Another voice followed.
"Police! Open the door!"
Carter moved toward the hallway.
Before he reached it, I heard my father speak again through the damaged phone.
"Rebecca, keep the line open."
"I will."
Carter unlocked the door.
The house filled with uniforms.
Two paramedics entered first with a stretcher and medical bags.
A police officer came behind them.
Then another.
The first paramedic took one look at my uniform and dropped to his knees beside me.
"Ma'am, I'm Eric. Can you tell me how many weeks pregnant you are?"
"Twenty-nine."
"Any trauma tonight?"
Carter answered from across the kitchen.
"She fell."
The paramedic did not look at him.
"Ma'am, I'm asking you."
I lifted my eyes.
Carter's face was rigid.
Mrs. Eleanor was standing behind him.
My father's voice was still coming faintly from the phone in my hand.
I had spent two years choosing silence because silence kept the evening from getting worse.
But the evening was already worse.
"My husband slapped me when I came home," I said.
The room changed.
The police officer nearest Carter turned fully toward him.
I continued.
"Then his mother shoved me into the counter."
Mrs. Eleanor gasped.
"You lying little—"
"Ma'am," the officer cut in.
"Do not approach her."
I looked at the shattered phone.
"I tried to call 911."
My voice trembled.
"Carter took my phone and threw it across the kitchen."
The second officer looked at the broken screen, then at Carter.
"Sir, step into the living room for me."
Carter lifted both hands.
"I'm an attorney."
The officer's expression did not change.
"Then you understand the instruction."
The paramedics lowered me onto the stretcher.
The moment I lay back, another contraction hit.
I screamed before I could stop myself.
The monitor they strapped around my stomach chirped once.
Then again.
Eric's face tightened.
"We need to move."
His partner looked at the reading.
"Fetal heart rate is dropping."
My father heard that sentence through the phone.
"Rebecca?"
I clutched the phone in both hands.
"Dad, I'm scared."
His answer came instantly.
"I know."
The stretcher rolled toward the hallway.
"But you are not alone anymore."
As they pushed me past Carter, he stepped toward me.
"Rebecca, don't do this."
A police officer blocked him with one arm.
I turned my head.
Carter looked terrified now.
Not for the baby.
For himself.
That realization hurt almost as badly as my body did.
The front doors opened.
Cold night air hit my face.
Blue lights painted the houses across the street.
Neighbors stood behind curtains and on porches.
I heard Mrs. Eleanor arguing with an officer behind me.
I heard Carter insisting that nobody understood.
Then the ambulance doors shut.
The paramedic reached for my phone.
"We need both hands free to treat you."
I lifted it toward my mouth.
"Dad?"
"I'm here."
"They're taking the phone."
"Let them."
He paused.
"I will meet you at the hospital."
The line ended.
The ambulance lurched forward.
Eric started an IV while his partner watched the fetal monitor.
I stared at the ceiling lights flashing past above me.
"Is my baby alive?"
Eric looked directly at me.
"Right now, yes."
Right now.
Those two words became the entire world.
At the hospital, everything moved too quickly.
Bright corridors.
Hands lifting me.
Questions I could barely answer.
A nurse cutting away part of my uniform.
A doctor pressing an ultrasound probe against my abdomen.
Someone asking my blood type.
Someone else asking whether I felt dizzy.
I kept asking one question.
"My baby?"
Nobody answered until a woman in blue surgical scrubs leaned over me.
Her badge read DR. PRIYA SHAH, MATERNAL-FETAL MEDICINE.
"Rebecca, I'm Dr. Shah."
I grabbed her wrist.
"Please tell me."
Her eyes were kind.
Her voice was not comforting.
"Your baby's heart rate is unstable, and you have signs of placental separation."
I knew enough to understand the terror in those words.
"Can you stop it?"
"We're going to try to protect both of you."
Another monitor alarm sounded.
Dr. Shah glanced toward it.
Then back at me.
"But I need you to hear me clearly."
The doors behind her opened.
May you like
A surgical team was already waiting.
"We may need to deliver your son tonight."
