27
Olivia
I’m whisked off to the hospital with Doctor Morgan accompanying us in the dark van. The same vehicle they used to snatch me off the street.
She doesn’t say anything, but she looks about as stressed as I feel, minus the pain of being in labor. It’s clear to me that she’s under duress.
What do they have on her?
Have they threatened her family?
I can’t worry about her. My focus is on the little girl about ready to burst through the seams and arrive far earlier than I’d like.
The doctor is monitoring my contractions on the way to the hospital.
Each bump in the road is a new brand of torture and pain. I want to scream for the driver to pull over, but I don’t think he will, nor does it matter. It’s not like I can run and escape. If we do pull over, I’m at the mercy of the newborn I’m about to give birth to, and that doesn’t involve running far. Maybe onto the grass.
“You’re doing good,” Doctor Morgan says as she studies her watch and times my contractions.
We’re not alone in the back of the van. A man with a giant scar across his left cheek holds a gun in his hand. It’s a threat. His finger isn’t on the trigger, but he knows we are at his mercy.
We pull up at the hospital emergency room bay, and the man with the scar opens the back door while the driver retrieves a wheelchair near the front entrance.
In a matter of minutes, I’m shuffled through the hospital and up to labor and delivery. The men with the guns have their weapons hidden, but they’re just a few feet behind us. Doctor Morgan is pushing the wheelchair, taking charge of me as her patient.
“You have to wait out here,” she warns the mobsters as she ushers me back through the double doors.
“We have orders to stay at her side at all times,” the scar-faced man says.
“I don’t care. You wait out here, or I call security.”
They huff and snort their discontent as she wheels me through the secure area. “Relax, they can’t get to us back here.”
I wish I could believe her, but they aren’t going just to let me go and leave us alone now that I’m in labor.
The pain rips through me, another contraction. I have so many questions, concerns, worries, but none of them matter.
Jace isn’t here.
Maybe that’s for the best. I don’t want him in the delivery room if he is mafia and responsible for Austin and John’s death.
I don’t want him anywhere near the baby.
And the baby is coming now. It feels like any minute, and the little one will be making its grand entrance into the world.