Chapter 2
**“Sophia’s in labor too,”** he said.
The world stopped spinning. The background hum of the heart monitor seemed to drop to a low, distant drone. I stared at him, my arm remaining frozen in mid-air, floating in the space between us like a discarded lifeline.
"What?" I whispered, the word barely escaping my throat. "What did you just say?"
Vincent’s jaw tightened, the muscle ticking under his tan skin. He didn't look ashamed. He looked like a man managing a complicated logistics problem, a CEO deciding which board meeting required his immediate presence.
Then he uttered the words that severed the remaining threads of my heart.
**“She’s having my son.”**
The room seemed to tilt beneath me. A fresh contraction hit me right then—a monstrous wave of physical pain—but it was nothing compared to the violent, soul-crushing agony tearing through my chest.
Sophia Reynolds. She wasn't just some random woman he had picked up in a velvet-lined VIP lounge. Sophia was my sister—or as close to one as life had forced upon me. My parents had adopted her when we were twelve after her family died in a tragic accident. I had shared my bedroom with her, shared my clothes, shared my childhood secrets. And when Vincent Moretti took me as his wife in a lavish cathedral wedding meant to unite two powerful Chicago families, Sophia had stood right beside me as my maid of honor.
I had suspected something was wrong over the past year. The late nights, the sudden smells of unfamiliar perfume on his collars, the icy distance in our home—I had tried to rationalize it all as the brutal pressures of his criminal enterprise. But I had never, in my worst nightmares, imagined that the betrayal was rooted deep inside my own family tree.
The door swished open again, and my mother, Eleanor Bennett, walked into the room. She was draped in a mink coat despite the indoor heat, her diamond rings catching the sterile hospital light. Behind her stood my father, Arthur, his hands buried deep in his trousers, refusing to look me in the eye.
My mother didn't rush to my side. She didn't check my pulse or stroke my face. Instead, she walked over to Vincent, placing a delicate, manicured hand on his forearm, giving him a firm, approving nod.
I gasped for air, tears finally spilling over my lashes, scalding my cheeks. "Mom... Dad... did you know about this?"