Chapter 2 - The Lie I Chose
I decided Serena had finally won the argument Ethan and I had never admitted we were having. For months, he had called her "a donor story" whenever I questioned the dinners, the late calls, or why her prenatal visits always ended in his office. Now he was carrying her toward OR-3 while I crawled back onto the bed. "She asked for this, didn't she?" I said. Dr. Keene answered too quickly. "Ethan made the call." She would not say whether Serena had objected. Caleb reconnected my monitor and lowered his voice. "The chime wasn't supposed to play." At Vance, those four notes sounded only after a live birth, once a nurse entered the time and weight. Yet the melody had floated down the hall before Serena reached surgery. When I asked who triggered it, Caleb stared at the floor. Ethan returned long enough to sign a transfer refusal under his executive authority. "You're safer here," he said. Then he leaned close enough for only me to hear. "Don't turn this into another Serena scene." Not today.
