Chapter 5 - The First “No”The attending physician stepped between the tables. “This patient requires immediate diagnostic quiet. Any profile not medically necessary to this room must clear the perimeter now.”
Cole hoisted a legal folder from his brief. “I have emergency custody paperwork actively being drafted by the clerk.”
My heart hammered aggressively against my ribs, but I forced my vocal tracks to engage. “No.”
Every single profile in the room whirled to face my coordinate. My voice shook under the weight of the adrenaline, but my logic remained ironclad.
“You do not possess the legal right to stand inside this room after abandoning my system in the rain, and pretend this operation is born of love.”
Cole’s facial features hardened into an ugly mask. Ronan turned his head to scan my eyes.
“Do you authorize this individual to remain within your room, Brooke?”
I shook my head with absolute finality. “Negative. Evict him.”
Ronan threw the door open. Two massive private security operators from his tactical detail stepped into the frame. Cole looked down at me with a coldness I had once mistaken for executive confidence.
“Your system is executing a severe tactical error, Brooke.”
I placed both of my hands firmly over my stomach. “For the first time in seven long years, I compute that I am finally in absolute compliance.”
He cleared the room without raising his pitch. That specific quietude frightened my system infinitely more than an explosive rage would have.
Once the threat had cleared the floor, the physician explained that the severe emotional shock had likely initialized the contractions. They could apply chemical blocks to slow the labor, but my system required total rest, absolute safety, and zero external pressure.
Safety. A remarkably foreign data point. Like something extracted from another woman’s life history.
Ronan stood silently near the floor-to-ceiling glass, watching the black rain slide down the pane. I tracked his silhouette.
May you like
“Why did your server populate my name before I delivered the data?”
He remained quiet for an extended beat. Then he whirled around. “Because your biological mother saved my sister’s life.”
