My Groom Abandoned Our Dying Baby

The world blurred into a cacophony of sirens and shouting. Through the haze of pain, I watched Gabriel's back as he walked away from our mangled SUV, phone pressed to his ear. Not calling for help. Calling her.

"Ma'am, can you hear me?" A paramedic's face appeared in the shattered window, his voice urgent. "We're going to get you out. Stay with me."

I tried to nod, but my neck screamed in protest. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. "My baby," I whispered, my hand instinctively moving to my stomach. "Please, my baby..."

The extraction was a blur of pain and gentle hands. They worked quickly, cutting through the seatbelt that had become both my savior and my prison. As they eased me onto a backboard, I searched desperately for Gabriel among the crowd of onlookers. He stood apart, still on his phone, his free hand running through his hair—his tell when he was stressed or lying.

"Sir! Sir, we need to transport your wife immediately!" A female paramedic called to him. "Are you riding with us?"

Gabriel looked up, startled, as if suddenly remembering I existed. He nodded vaguely, but made no move toward the ambulance as they loaded me inside.

The doors slammed shut. Gabriel wasn't there.

Inside the ambulance, a nurse with kind eyes and a name tag reading "Davis" leaned over me, attaching monitors and inserting an IV with practiced efficiency.

"I'm Nurse Davis. We're taking you to Mount Sinai. Can you tell me your name?" she asked, her voice a calm anchor in the storm of my fear.

"Isabella," I managed. "Isabella Sterling. I'm pregnant—four months."

Something flickered across her face—concern, maybe pity—before her professional mask returned. "We're going to take good care of you and your baby, Isabella. Just stay with me."

The pain in my abdomen intensified, a white-hot knife twisting deeper. I clutched at Nurse Davis's hand. "Something's wrong," I gasped. "Something's wrong with my baby."

She squeezed my hand back, her eyes meeting mine with steady compassion. "We have the best obstetric trauma team waiting for you. Just hold on."

The monitor beside me began to wail. Nurse Davis moved with sudden urgency, barking orders to her colleague. Through the fog of my fading consciousness, I saw her grab a phone.

"We need to contact her husband," she said. "Her condition is deteriorating."

As darkness crept in from the edges of my vision, I watched her dial, then frown. "No answer. Straight to voicemail."

Of course. Gabriel always silenced his phone during important calls. And what call could be more important than Victoria?

The hospital was a fluorescent nightmare. They rushed me through corridors, voices calling out medical terms I couldn't understand. Somewhere in the chaos, I heard Nurse Davis still trying: "Mr. Sterling, this is Mount Sinai Hospital. Your wife is in critical condition. Please call us immediately."

The operating room was cold, so cold. A doctor with tired eyes introduced himself as Dr. Lawson, speaking in the gentle tones reserved for the gravely injured.

"Mrs. Sterling, you have internal bleeding. We need to operate immediately. Do you understand?"

"My baby," I whispered. It was all I could say now, a prayer, a plea.

His eyes told me everything before his words did. "We'll do everything we can."

As the anesthesia mask lowered over my face, I thought of the seashell Gabriel had given me that summer in the Hamptons. How small it had looked in his palm as he promised to protect me forever. How I'd believed him.

I woke to the sound of quiet weeping. Nurse Davis stood by my bed, her back to me, on the phone again.

"This is the fifth message, Mr. Sterling. Your wife has lost the baby. She's hemorrhaging severely. She's asking for you. Please..." Her voice broke. "Please come."

The pain in my heart eclipsed all physical agony. My baby was gone. And Gabriel was gone too.

Through the haze of morphine, I saw Dr. Lawson enter, his surgical gown stained with what I knew was my blood. He spoke quietly to Nurse Davis, who nodded and wiped her eyes.

"Maximum transfusions," he ordered. "And keep trying the husband."

Nurse Davis stepped into the hallway, her phone to her ear again. I could see her through the small window in the door, her face a mask of frustration and disbelief.

"This is Nurse Davis from Mount Sinai Hospital," she said, her voice carrying through the thin door. "I need to speak with Gabriel Sterling immediately. His wife... his wife may not make it through the night."

She listened for a moment, then her shoulders slumped. "I understand you're his assistant. But this is an emergency. Please... just tell him Isabella needs him."

As consciousness slipped away again, I wondered who was answering Gabriel's phone. Who was keeping him from me in my darkest hour. But deep down, I already knew.

Victoria had always been his emergency. I was just the wife he left bleeding in the wreckage.