(Virginia’s POV)
“I’ll make her pay for hurting my Jasper.”
<b>+25 </b>Points
The words slip out before I realize I’ve spoken them aloud. But as soon as they leave my lips, the steady beeping of Jasper’s heart monitor suddenly bes erratic. His body goes rigid, then starts convulsing against the hospital bed.
Beep–beep–BEEP–BEEP–BEEP!
The sudden change is a physical shock, jolting me bolt upright.
“Jasper!” I scream, staring at the chaotic lines on the monitor, my voice raw with fresh,
immediate terror.
I leap to the door, fumbling with the handle, and tear it open. “Doctor! Nurse! His heart! Something’s wrong!”
A flurry of white and blue descends–doctors and nurses, their faces masks of urgency, rush past me into the room. They swarm around the bed, pushing me against the wall as they work over him, shouting medical terms I don’t understand.
“Code blue! Get the crash cart! Vitals dropping!”
“What happened?” Dr. Martin demands as he checks his pupils with a small shlight. <fn7a88> N?w ?ovel chapt?rs are published on fι?dnοvel</fn7a88>
“I don’t know. He was sleeping peacefully, and then he just… he started seizing.”
“Increased intracranial pressure,” someone calls out. “We need to get him to surgery.”
Surgery. The word hits me like a physical blow.
“Is he going to be okay?”
But no one answers. Next second, he’s wheeled out of the room, into the ICU, the double doors mming in my face.
The panic in my chest is a physical, suffocating thing. He can’t die. He <i>can’t</i><i>. </i>Not now. Not before we got married.
Themotion on this end draws James and ir over, their faces pale with fear. And behind them, Scarlett and Dorian.
“What’s happening?” ir asks as a nurse rushes out of the operating room.
< Chapter 136
25 <b>Points </b>
“The patient went into shock. There’s bleeding in his brain we didn’t catch on the first scan. We need a family member to sign the consent forms.”
I snatch the papers out of her hand. But before I can sign them, ir takes me out of my hands and gives them to Scarlett. “Byw, you’re still his wife. Virginia is not in a position to sign these forms.” she says, and renewed rage burns through me.
“What do you mean I can’t sign them? I’m Jasper’s…”
“Virginia. Please, not now. Jasper is more important.” James says, a stern look on his face.
My rage simmers. They’re all on her side. But no matter. I’ll make them pay for this one day. Right now, Jasper is more important.
I step back, watching with cold eyes as Scarlett signs the surgery consent forms and hands them back to the nurse.
As she’s about to go back into the operating room, I grab the nurse’s hand and beg, “Please, please save him…”
“We’ll do our best. But this is brain surgery. We can’t promise anything.”
The words echo in my head as they disappear down the hallway. Brain surgery. Jasper is undergoing brain surgery.
If anything goes wrong…
My blood turns to ice.
“This is all your fault,” I turn on Scarlett, my voice shaking with rage. “If you hadn’t-”
“Virginia, stop.” ir’s voice cuts through my usation like a de. “Just stop.”
I stare at her, shocked. ir has always been gentle with me, always understanding. She’s never spoken to me in that tone before.
“You’re not the only one who’s worried about Jasper,” she continues, her eyes shing with something I’ve never seen before. Anger. “And in case you forgot, Scarlett didn’t force Jasper to save her. He willingly made that decision. So if you have anyints, take them up with Jasper.”
The dismissal is brutal, final, and utterly public. She dismantled my fa?ade, stripped away my self–justification, and painted my concern for Jasper as nothing more than misdirected
anger.
The shame of being called out, of being publicly put in my ce, res into a white–hot rage.
< Chapter 136
But I can’t move. I am too stunned by the sheer force of her defiance.
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I open my mouth to argue, to exin that none of this would have happened if Scarlett had just stayed away. But before I can speak, I hear something that makes my blood run cold.
“Mama.”
The wordes from Scarlett, soft and broken and full of a longing I recognize. The same longing I’ve carried for twenty–three years, waiting for someone to im me as their own.
ir’s entire demeanor changes in an instant. The anger melts away, reced by maternal tenderness as she pulls Scarlett into her arms.
“Oh, habibti,” she murmurs, using the pet name she’s never used for me. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
I watch them embrace, feeling like an outsider looking in on a family reunion that doesn’t include me. Again.
“I got your birthday gift,” Scarlett says against ir’s shoulder, her voice muffled by tears.
ir pulls back to look at her. “I should have been there to celebrate with you. I should have been there…”
“It’s okay.” But Scarlett’s voice breaks on the words, betraying how much it’s not okay.
“No, it’s not. We failed you. I failed you as a mother.”
“You raised me for twenty–three years,” Scarlett whispers. “You taught me to be strong, to be independent. I may not be your biological daughter, but you’re still my mother. You’ll always be my mother.”
yet I’ve The words gut mepletely. Because I should be their biological daughter, <i>and </i>never felt the kind of belonging in their house that Scarlett takes for granted. I’ve spent years trying to erase her from their lives.
And yet…
“I was so heartbroken when I lost the house,” Scarlett continues. “Not because of the building, but because I thought I was losing you too. All those memories, all those years of being your daughter–I thought they didn’t matter anymore.”
“They matter,” ir says fiercely, holding Scarlett tighter. “They’ll always matter. You’re my child, Scarlett. Biology doesn’t change that.”
My child. The words I’ve been desperate to hear for years.
< Chapter 136
+25 Points
I turn away, unable to watch anymore. Unable to see the love and eptance I’ve craved being given so freely to the woman who destroyed my life.
Violet Moon
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