10. Eric
ERIC
I'm halfway through the lobby when I know something's wrong.
The silence hits first—not the comfortable quiet of a clinic between appointments, but the stretched, unnatural stillness that happens when everyone stops moving at once.
The receptionist at the front desk has her phone pressed to her ear, but she's not talking. She's staring toward the elevator bank with wide eyes that dart to me the moment she sees me walking.
Her face goes pale.
"Sir, you need to?—"
I don't wait for her to finish. The elevator's too slow. I take the stairs two at a time, my pulse hammering against my ribs in a rhythm that doesn't match my footsteps.
Something cold spreads through my chest as I push through the stairwell door onto the second floor.
The Ashford wing should be humming with the usual sounds—phones ringing, keyboards clicking, the low murmur of conversation. Instead, there's nothing but the kind of silence that makes your skin crawl.
Staff members stand frozen in the hallway. A nurse I recognize from the ground floor presses herself against the wall like she's trying to disappear. Her eyes track to me, then flick toward the open area where Anya's desk sits.
Where Anya should be sitting.
I round the corner and see him.
Ryan Calloway stands behind Anya's chair, but this isn't the clean-cut doctor who used to work here. His hair hangs greasy and uncombed. His shirt is wrinkled, stained. His eyes have the wild, unfocused look of someone who hasn't slept in days.
And he has a knife pressed against Anya's throat.
She's standing perfectly still. Her hands hang at her sides, fingers slightly spread like she's afraid to make fists. Her back is straight, her chin lifted just enough to keep the blade from digging deeper into her skin.
My vision tunnels. Sound drops away except for the rush of blood in my ears. The knife—silver, sharp, pressed just below her jaw—fills my entire field of vision.
Not just Anya. The baby.
Both of them.
Everything.
Heat floods my chest so fast it feels like drowning. Every easy smile I've ever worn, every joke I've ever made, every moment of warmth and charm—all of it burns away in the space between one heartbeat and the next.
Ryan's mouth is moving. He's saying something, but I can't hear him over the roar in my head.
Anya's eyes find mine across the open area, and I see the careful control she's holding onto. She's not panicking. She's waiting.
Vincent appears at the edge of my peripheral vision, moving slowly toward them from the left. Jones emerges from his office to the right, his face a mask of cold calculation.
But I don't wait for a plan. I don't wait for negotiation.
I catch Anya's attention with the slightest nod—the same signal I use when I want her to look at me during meetings, when I want her to know I'm about to say something she should pay attention to.
Her eyes widen just a fraction. She understands.
She drops.
The moment her body moves away from the knife, I'm already crossing the space between us. Ryan's head snaps up as he realizes what's happening, but he's too slow, too strung out, too focused on the woman who's no longer in his grip.
I hit him in the face with everything I have.
The sound of impact echoes through the wing—bone against bone, the wet crack of his nose breaking under my knuckles. He staggers backward, the knife clattering to the floor as his hands fly to his face.
Vincent has Anya before she can fully straighten. His arms close around her, pulling her against his chest, turning his body to block her view of Ryan bleeding on the floor behind her desk.
I don't stop.
Ryan tries to scramble for the knife, but I'm already on him. My fist connects with his ribs, and the air rushes out of him in a sharp wheeze. He doubles over, and I grab a handful of his greasy hair to pull his head up.
"You put a knife to her throat." Each word comes out sharp and precise, carved from the fury burning in my chest.
"She—they destroyed my?—"
I hit him again. He goes down hard, his skull connecting with the corner of Anya's desk before he crumples to the floor.
"Eric." Jones's voice cuts through the red haze. "That's enough."
Security arrives first, then the police. They haul Ryan to his feet, cuffing his hands behind his back while blood streams from his nose onto his stained shirt. He's muttering something about his career, his reputation, but I don't care what he has to say.
I only care about Anya.
She's still in Vincent's arms, her face pressed against his chest, but her eyes are open and tracking the activity around the room. No tears. Her jaw is set in the stubborn line I know so well.
When she turns to look for me, I see it—a thin red line along her throat where the knife pressed too close.
My vision whites out.
"Eric." Vincent's voice is steady, grounding. "She's okay. Look at me—she's okay."
Anya pulls away from Vincent and reaches for me. Her hands find my face, her thumbs brushing across my cheekbones.
"I'm fine," she says, and her voice is stronger than mine would be. "We're fine."
We. The baby.
My hands cover hers, and I can't stop them from shaking. The adrenaline is draining out of me too fast, leaving everything hollow and unsteady.
"You ducked," I manage to say.
"You told me to."
"If you hadn't?—"
"But I did." Her fingers trace the line of my jaw. "I knew you'd get to me."
Jones handles the police statements. Vincent stays close to Anya, a steady presence at her shoulder while she answers questions. I can barely form sentences when they ask me what happened.
By the time the cops leave, the wing has returned to an approximation of normal. Staff members filter back to their desks, phones start ringing again, but the four of us stay where we are—gathered around Anya's desk like we're afraid to let too much distance settle between us.
"We should go home," Jones says finally.
Anya nods, but when she stands, her legs wobble. Vincent catches her elbow, and I move to her other side without thinking.
"I can walk," she protests, but she doesn't pull away from us.
"Humor us," I tell her.
We make it as far as Jones's office before I stop walking.
"I need to say something," I announce.
Jones raises an eyebrow. Vincent tilts his head in that considering way of his. Anya looks between the three of us like she's trying to read a conversation that hasn't happened yet.
"What is it?" she asks.
I take out a velvet box, and Jones and Vincent do the same—three rings we chose together on a Saturday afternoon while Anya was at the bookstore. Same band, different diamond — because even when we agree, we never do anything the same way.
Her eyes go wide.
"We need you to know something," I say, opening the box to show her the diamond inside. "This isn't because you're pregnant."
"We bought these before we knew about the baby," Jones adds, his own box open in his palm.
"Before we even knew if you'd stay past the three months," Vincent concludes.
Anya stares at the rings, then at us, then back at the rings. "I don't understand."
"We've been planning this since the first month," I explain. "Since we realized we weren't going to let you leave."
"Since we realized we didn't want to," Jones corrects.
"Since we realized we couldn't," Vincent finishes.
She's quiet for a long moment, her fingers touching the scratch on her throat. When she looks up at me, her eyes are bright with tears she's not letting fall.
"You were going to ask me to marry you anyway?"
"All of us," I confirm. "Together. The way everything else has been."
"The way everything else will be," Jones adds.
I take the ring from the box and hold it out to her. My hands have finally stopped shaking, but my voice comes out rougher than I intended.
"Anya, you walked into our lives and turned everything upside down.
You challenged us, fought with us, made us better than we were before you got here.
" I pause, searching for words that feel big enough for what she means to me.
"You made me want to be more than just the guy who makes everyone else comfortable.
You made me want to be someone worth keeping. "
I slide the ring onto her finger, and it fits perfectly.
"I love you," I say, and the words feel like stepping off a cliff.
"I love your stubbornness and your sharp tongue and the way you blush when you're trying to be angry.
I love that you refuse to back down from anything that matters to you.
I love that you're carrying our baby and that you ducked when I needed you to and that you're here, alive, wearing my ring. "
Jones steps forward next, his ring already in his hand.
"Anya, you're the only person who's ever looked me in the eye and told me I was wrong.
" He takes her left hand and slides his ring onto her middle finger.
"You're the only person who's ever made me want to be wrong, just to see what you'd do about it. "
His voice drops lower, more intimate. "I love that you roll your eyes at me.
I love that you fight me on everything and then let me take care of you anyway.
I love that you trust us with your body, your future, your heart.
" He lifts her hand to his mouth and presses a kiss to her knuckles.
"I love you, sweet stepsister, and I'm never letting you go. "
Vincent is the last, and he waits until Jones steps back before he reaches for her right hand. "You see everything," he says simply, sliding his ring onto her ring finger. "You always have. From the first day, you saw what we needed, what we wanted, what we were trying to build."
He covers her hand with both of his. "You see me when I'm not talking.
You know what I'm thinking before I say it.
You make space for the quiet parts of me that other people don't notice.
" His voice is steady, certain. "I love your intelligence and your determination and the way you make everything better just by being in it.
I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life proving that you chose well. "
Anya looks down at her hands—three rings, three different diamonds, three promises that somehow fit together perfectly. When she looks back up, tears are finally spilling over.
"You're all insane," she says, but she's laughing through the tears. "Completely, utterly insane."
"Is that a yes?" I ask.
"That's a yes," she confirms, and then she's kissing me—soft and sure and tasting like salt from her tears.
When she pulls back, she turns to Jones, then Vincent, giving each of them the same soft kiss, the same whispered "yes."
"I love you too," she says finally, looking at all three of us.
"I love that you're overprotective and demanding and completely impossible to argue with when you're all ganging up on me.
I love that you bought rings together like some kind of coordinated marriage proposal conspiracy.
I love that you're already planning the baby's entire life and we don't even know if it's a boy or a girl yet. "
She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, careful not to disturb the rings.
"I love that I walked in here three months ago planning to take my money and run, and instead I found the three most stubborn, impossible men in North Carolina who somehow convinced me that staying was the better option. "
"Best decision you ever made," I point out.
"Second best," she corrects. "The best was ducking when you told me to."
I pull her against me, wrapping my arms around her and the baby and the future we're building together. "Good reflexes, sweetheart."
"Good signal," she replies, settling into my chest like she belongs there.
Which she does. Forever, now.
The rings catch the light as she spreads her fingers, three diamonds that somehow look like they were always meant to be worn together.
Just like us.