Chapter 2 - THE MAN WHO STOPPED THE RAIN
The bus driver had already pulled over before I understood what was happening.
People were standing in the aisle.
Someone was crying.
Someone else was shouting that an ambulance was coming.
And I was sitting there with my hands pressed against my stomach, shaking so badly that I couldn't make my fingers obey me.
“Ma’am, stay with me.”
The woman across the aisle had moved beside me. She was probably in her sixties, wearing a red raincoat and holding an umbrella she had apparently forgotten to close.
“Look at me,” she said.
“I can't…”
“Yes, you can.”
“My babies.”
“They're coming.”
“No.”
My voice broke.
“They're only twenty-eight weeks.”
The woman’s expression changed.
She immediately understood.
“Triplets?”
I nodded.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
Another contraction tore through me.
I screamed.
Then I heard sirens.
Red and blue lights flashed across the rain-covered windows.
Two paramedics rushed onto the bus carrying equipment.
“Twenty-eight weeks pregnant,” the older woman said quickly. “Triplets. Her water broke about two minutes ago.”
One paramedic dropped beside me.
“How far along?”
“Twenty-eight weeks.”
“Triplets?”
“Yes.”
“Any bleeding?”
“Not yet.”
“Can you feel all three moving?”
I swallowed.
“I… I don't know.”
“Okay. We're going to get you out of here.”
They carefully transferred me onto a stretcher.
The moment they lifted me, another contraction came.
And something inside me changed.
The pressure was different.
Stronger.
Lower.
One of the paramedics looked at the monitor and then at his partner.
“We need to move.”
The ambulance doors slammed.
The vehicle accelerated through the rain.
I stared at the ceiling while the city lights streaked past the windows.
“Please,” I whispered.
“Please let them live.”
A paramedic squeezed my hand.
“We're doing everything we can.”
I closed my eyes.
Ethan.
For five years, Ethan had been the person I called whenever I was afraid.
My husband.
My home.
The man whose children I carried.
But tonight, when my life was falling apart, I wasn't thinking about him.
I was thinking about three tiny hearts.
Three lives that hadn't even had a chance to begin.
Then the ambulance suddenly slowed.
“What's happening?” I asked.
“Traffic.”
“No.”
I grabbed the paramedic's sleeve.
“You can't stop.”
“We're trying.”
“No. Please.”
The driver sounded over the intercom.
“There's a major accident ahead. We're boxed in.”
My heart sank.
“How long?”
“Could be ten minutes.”
Ten minutes.
At twenty-eight weeks pregnant with triplets, ten minutes felt like an eternity.
Another contraction came.
I cried out.
The paramedic checked me.
His expression tightened.
“We may have to deliver here.”
“No.”
“We need to prepare.”
“No!”
I started shaking my head.
“No, please. Not here. Not in an ambulance.”
Then the driver shouted from the front.
“There's a vehicle coming through!”
“What vehicle?”
“Security convoy.”
A second later, the ambulance lurched forward.
Outside, black SUVs were forcing their way through the stalled traffic.
Three.
Then four.
All identical.
No markings.
No flashing lights.
Just tinted windows and men in dark suits.
The lead SUV pulled directly in front of us.
The ambulance driver slammed on his brakes.
“Are you kidding me?”
The rear door of the lead SUV opened.
A man stepped into the rain.
Tall.
Broad-shouldered.
Dark hair.
Black overcoat.
He didn't run.
He simply walked toward the ambulance as if the traffic, the rain, and the chaos belonged to him.
One of the paramedics stared through the windshield.
His face went pale.
“Oh, God.”
“What?” I whispered.
He didn't answer.
The man reached the ambulance.
The rear doors opened.
He looked inside.
His eyes landed on me.
For one strange second, everything became quiet.
Not the city.
Not the rain.
Something inside me.
The man's gaze dropped to my stomach.
Then back to my face.
“What's her condition?”
The paramedic swallowed.
“She's twenty-eight weeks with triplets. Water broke. We think she's progressing rapidly.”
“Which hospital?”
“St. Vincent's.”
“Too far.”
The man pulled out his phone.
“Get her to Lenox.”
“We're not authorized—”
“You are now.”
The paramedic stared at him.
I couldn't understand.
Who was this man?
Then the driver whispered from the front.
“That's Adrian Blackwood.”
The name meant nothing to me.
But the paramedic's expression told me it should.
Adrian Blackwood.
The billionaire who owned half the financial district.
The man whose companies appeared on magazine covers.
The man people said never lost a negotiation.
The man whose name was supposedly enough to make CEOs answer calls at three in the morning.
He leaned into the ambulance.
“Mrs. Mercer.”
My eyes widened.
“How do you know my name?”
His expression didn't change.
“I know who your husband is.”
Something about the way he said husband made my stomach tighten.
“Then you know he doesn't care.”
For the first time, something flickered in his eyes.
Not pity.
Anger.
Controlled, frightening anger.
“Apparently.”
He stepped back.
“Move.”
The convoy began clearing a path.
The ambulance accelerated.
I watched Adrian Blackwood disappear behind us.
I thought that was the end of it.
I was wrong.
Twenty minutes later, the ambulance reached Lenox Medical Center.
The emergency entrance was already waiting.
Doctors rushed toward me.
NICU nurses.
Obstetricians.
An entire team.
Someone shouted my name.
Someone else asked about Ethan.
“He's not coming,” I said.
The doctor looked at me.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Is there another family member?”
I shook my head.
“No.”
Then I heard footsteps.
A familiar voice spoke behind me.
“I'll be here.”
I turned.
Adrian Blackwood stood at the end of the corridor.
His coat was still wet from the rain.
His face was unreadable.
And somehow, in the middle of the most terrifying night of my life, his presence made me feel less alone.
The doctor approached him.
“Sir, this is a private medical facility.”
“I know.”
“You can't simply—”
“Her medical expenses are covered.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
He looked at me.
“All of them.”
“I don't need your money.”
“I didn't offer it because you need charity.”
“Then why?”
His jaw tightened.
“Because three children shouldn't pay for their father's cruelty.”
I couldn't answer.
A nurse suddenly shouted.
“Her blood pressure is dropping!”
The doctor turned.
“Move!”
They rushed me toward the operating room.
I reached for someone's hand without thinking.
My fingers closed around Adrian's.
He froze.
I did too.
“Don't let them die,” I whispered.
His fingers tightened around mine.
“They won't.”
The operating room doors opened.
The nurses pulled me away.
Our hands separated.
And the last thing I saw before the doors closed was Adrian Blackwood standing alone beneath the hospital lights.
Watching me.
Watching my unborn children.
With an expression that looked disturbingly like a promise.
Three hours later, the first baby cried.
Then the second.
Then the third.
Three tiny screams.
Three fragile lives.
Three miracles born far too early.
I never heard them.
I was unconscious.
But Adrian did.
He stood behind the glass of the NICU while doctors fought to keep three premature babies alive.
One nurse came toward him.
“Mr. Blackwood?”
“Yes?”
“Are you family?”
He looked through the glass.
At the three incubators.
At the smallest baby, whose chest rose and fell beneath a ventilator.
“No,” he said quietly.
Then his eyes hardened.
“Not yet.”
The nurse frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Adrian turned toward the hospital entrance.
Because at that exact moment, Ethan Mercer had finally arrived.
And he wasn't alone.
Beside him stood Sabrina Vale.
The actress from Malibu.
The woman he had chosen over his pregnant wife.
Ethan walked toward the NICU doors.
Adrian stepped into his path.
“You're late.”
Ethan stopped.
His eyes narrowed.
“Who the hell are you?”
Adrian didn't blink.
“The man who got your wife to the hospital.”
Ethan looked past him.
“Where is Claire?”
“In surgery.”
His face changed.
Then he noticed the incubators.
His eyes widened.
“Are those…”
“Your children.”
Ethan stared through the glass.
For the first time that night, fear crossed his face.
But Adrian saw something else.
Something colder.
Ethan's first question wasn't whether Claire was alive.
It wasn't whether the babies were breathing.
It was:
“Who told you about them?”
Adrian's expression went still.
And suddenly, he understood.
Ethan wasn't surprised that his children had been born.
He was surprised that Adrian Blackwood knew they existed.
May you like
That was the first sign that something much darker was waiting beneath this marriage.
And Adrian intended to find out exactly what it was.
