The hospital corridors were too bright, too cleanlike they mocked her. Valerie's boots echoed against the white floor as she stormed down the hall, shoulders heaving. She didn't care that her eyes were bloodshot, that her face betrayed the exhaustion she had fought to hide from her men. She was Valerie Moretti Dominic's sister, the woman who never bent. But tonight, she felt bent. Broken.
When she reached the ward, she froze. Through the glass window, she saw Elena lying motionless on the bed. Pale. Fragile. Tubes ran in and out of her body like she was being kept alive by wires rather than blood. Beside her, the incubator hummed quietly, holding a tiny figure wrapped in a white blanket. The baby Dominic's daughter. His legacy.
