30. Zara
ZARA
I came to, when we reached the hospital, and everything was covered in blood. Sterling’s. Mine. There were smears of it on his torn tuxedo jacket, on my thighs, across the seats of the blacked-out car that had rushed us here.
The emergency room doors burst open, as Frankie screamed for a gurney. I could barely hold my head up, but I saw them, first responders, security, nurses, and Sterling.
Bleeding.
Wild.
Unstoppable.
“Get the fucking crash cart! She’s bleeding out! I don’t see movement!” Sterling shouted.
Two nurses ran toward us, but he blocked them with his body, one arm still wrapped around me.
“Don’t touch her unless your hands are clean, your soul is loyal, and you’ve never made a mistake in your fucking life!” he roared.
“Sir, we need to take her now-”
“You move one step closer without my permission, and I’ll put your heart on ice and mail it to your mother!”
Blood was dripping down his side now, fast and steady, soaking his shirt. He didn’t care. He didn’t even notice.
Doctors rushed forward. A young one tried to take my chart from the triage nurse, and Sterling lunged.
“I want a full trauma team. My daughter is crowning, and if she doesn’t make it, I will personally bankrupt your families. Every. Last. One.”
Security came next. One of them made the mistake of touching his arm, to guide him out of the way. Sterling grabbed the man by the throat, and slammed him into the wall.
“She goes where I go,” he hissed. “You separate us, I swear to God-”
“Sir-”
“Get Dr. Laz,” Sterling barked. “Or I start breaking ribs, until someone listens.”
That finally got them moving.
They wheeled me onto a gurney. Sterling staggered beside it, holding my hand, even as his own legs gave out beneath him. Blood puddled beneath his shoes, and I could feel him swaying.
“You’re losing too much blood,” someone said. “You need to sit down-”
“I said, she’s not going alone.”
He was pale. Gray. Still standing. Still shouting.
And then, just as they turned the corner with my bed, just as the operating room came into view, I heard the sickening sound of something heavy hitting the floor.
Sterling.
He crumpled to his knees beside me, blood smearing down the sterile white wall as his legs gave out. His lips still moved, hoarse and cracked: “Save her... Save my girls…”
Nurses shouting. Doctors hesitating, including Laz. The smell of antiseptic, sharp in my nose. Sterling lying limp on the ground.
“She’s coding-” someone shouted.
At the commotion, Sterling’s eyes opened. He snapped up and started barking orders, ignoring that he was on the ground giving them.
“I don’t give a fuck,” he growled. “You save her. You save my daughter. You lose either, and I burn this building to the ground.”
I tried to speak. Tried to tell them not to listen to him. That I was fading. That I didn’t want to die.
But the words never came.
I slipped under.
Not into dreams, but into weightless dark. Into silence. I floated between planes, between time and breath. But I didn’t go all the way under.
Because I heard him.
“Stay with me, Zara.”
His voice was ragged. Not a command. A prayer.
I felt his lips brush my hand, felt his fingers grip mine, like he could will me back. Like he was daring me to die.
“You’re not done yet,” he whispered. “You hear me, my little hummingbird? You haven’t finished ruining me.”
And something in me clawed back to life.
The first thing I felt was heat, everywhere. Then the cold rush of oxygen against my lips. Then pain. Then the ache of life.
I gasped, the sound ripping through my chest like a sob. My eyes opened to blinding white light, and Sterling’s bloodshot gaze staring down at me.
He looked wrecked. Bruised knuckles. Torn suit. Stitches peeking through the bandage on his ribs. But he was alive. And he was here.
I tried to speak.
“The baby-?”
He stepped aside, slowly, as if revealing the universe.
A nurse was standing beside a clear bassinet, swaddling the smallest, most perfect human I had ever seen, wrapped in a pink blanket.
Our daughter.
Tears streamed down my face. “She’s… she’s real.”
Sterling’s voice cracked. “She’s yours.”
I let out a broken laugh. “Ours.”
He fell to his knees beside the bed, his head resting on my thigh, his hand fisting in the blanket. “Don’t ever do that again.”
“I didn’t exactly volunteer.”
His shoulders shook once. Twice. A sob or a laugh, I couldn’t tell. “They said we might lose both of you.”
“But you didn’t.”
His eyes lifted. They were pure ice. “Because I refused.”
He cupped my cheek, his thumb trembling, as it brushed away my tears. “You’re not allowed to leave me. You understand? I decide when this ends.”
I swallowed hard. “And if I say I’m not yours anymore?”
His mouth twisted, like the words wounded him. “Then I’ll become someone else, until you change your mind.”
“Sterling-”
“Shh.” He kissed my knuckles, each one tender, reverent. “You lived. That’s all that matters.”
But I knew the truth. His blood was on the floor of the Kingsley Art Gallery. He’d taken a bullet. And then he’d carried me through fire.
He saved us both.
And in that moment, I let myself love him back.
Not because he earned it.
But because he was mine.
We had survived. We were alive.
And our daughter was here.
But I wasn’t okay. Not really. My scar tugged every time I moved. My back ached. Sometimes I cried without reason. People acted like surviving was enough. But every shadow made me flinch. Every knock at the door made my body lock up, like it remembered the gunshots.
Three weeks later, we were home. Or something like it.
The NICU had discharged our daughter after twelve grueling days. I left with stitches that still ached when I twisted wrong. Sterling, with bandages, and a warning about overexertion.
But somehow, we survived.
The recovery had been slow, but I was finally home, wrapped in the comfort of our bed, our daughter nestled against me as I fed her.
The moment felt soft, intimate, peaceful, a stark contrast to the chaos we had left behind.
The door creaked open, and I looked up to find Sterling standing in the doorway, his body tense, his gaze locked onto me.
Or rather, my breasts.
My body still hurt. I bled when I moved wrong. But I was home, and she was alive, and for the first time in weeks, no one was trying to rip power out of my hands. I didn’t know what tomorrow would look like, but today? I was his, because I chose it. Not because I owed it.
Heat rose to my cheeks, as I realized what he was looking at. I was bare, exposed, my baby latched onto me as she fed.
His throat bobbed, his grip on the door tightening. “Zara-”
I smirked, my exhaustion forgotten, tilting my head. “Problem?”
His answer didn’t come in words at first. Instead, he caught my hand, pressing something cold and familiar into my palm.
My breath hitched. Sterling’s ring. The heirloom Chadwick had torn from me, in the dirt outside the university.
“You-” My throat tightened. “You got it back.”
His gaze burned, unflinching. “Took it off his finger myself. He touched what’s mine, Zara. He doesn’t get to keep a single piece of me.”
Carefully, he slid the band back onto my finger, his jaw tight as if sealing a vow. “This never leaves you again.”
His eyes darkened, his jaw ticking. “You have no idea what you’re doing to me.”
Oh.
Oh.
A slow, knowing smile curled at my lips as I shifted slightly, adjusting our daughter in my arms. “She’s eating,” I murmured innocently. “Would you like a taste too?”
His breath hitched, his fingers twitching at his sides.
I had unlocked something dangerous.
Sterling moved.
He was beside me in an instant, his fingers ghosting over my swollen, sensitive skin. His mouth hovered just inches away.
“You’re playing with fire, little wife,” he warned, his voice thick.
I grinned, leaning into him, pressing a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Then burn with me.”
His growl was low and possessive, and as his lips finally met my skin, I knew…
I was in so much trouble.
But I wouldn’t have it any other way.