The Tenth Unanswered Call

Without my child, the will to live drained out of me.

Just as I was about to let the darkness take me, Scarlett burst from the shadows of the parking garage.

She took one look at my blood-soaked form and the phone still clutched in my hand. Rage contorted her face as she shrieked, "Why didn't you call me? What if I hadn't used the family tracking app to find you?"

She gently helped me up and frantically dialed Sterling.

"I'm with Vivienne. Don't bother me." The words hung in the air, and she froze.

She tried the security intercom, but we were too far from the guardhouse. No signal.

With no other choice, she half-carried, half-dragged me toward the exit as the kidnappers gave chase.

They caught up to us in seconds. One of them slammed an iron bar across Scarlett’s back as the others swarmed her.

Despite the blinding pain, she kept fighting, shielding me with her own body until she could barely stand.

Miraculously, we stumbled right into a patrolling security guard.

The kidnappers scattered, but the damage was done.

The obstetrician confirmed what my heart already knew. My baby was gone, ripped from my womb.

But the news about Scarlett was a shock I wasn't prepared for. The blow to her back had permanently damaged her spine. She could never perform high-intensity stunt work again. Her career was over.

She had sacrificed her dream—her life's passion—to save me.

Scarlett and I lay in adjacent beds in our private hospital rooms.

A suffocating silence filled the room.

She must have overheard Caspian’s furious phone call.

Scarlett struggled to sit up, reaching over to take my hand.

Her normally vibrant face was ashen, drained of color. Caspian’s cruel accusations made her eyes well up again.

They dripped onto the back of my hand as she whispered, "If only we'd never married the Hawthorne brothers."

She was worried about me, but all I could think about was her.

She had been one of Hollywood’s most promising stuntwomen, on track to become a top-tier action director.

Now, her spine injured, she was being forced into retirement, her future a terrifying blank.

I was about to say something to comfort her when her husband called.

"Caspian says Jules is faking a miscarriage? Did you put her up to this? Can't the two of you go one day without causing drama?" Sterling's voice crackled through the phone.

"And I told you yesterday, I was with Vivienne. It was an emergency. I told you not to bother me. Are you deaf?"

"I don't know why we ever married you two. Always scheming, threatening divorce, stirring up trouble. Who do you think you're scaring? If you want to leave, then get out! No one's begging you to stay!"

The call ended.

Scarlett stared at her phone, then managed a weak shrug, trying to act like it didn't matter.

But her eyes welled up with tears again.

I squeezed her cold hand. "Hey. Don't be sad. We're alive. That's all that matters. Maybe we were never meant to be with them. Maybe this is a sign it's time for us to go our separate ways."

"Let's just rest. Once we're stronger, we'll move out. Okay?"

Scarlett choked out a small "Okay."

Tears finally spilled over, tracing paths down her pale cheeks.

She leaned against my shoulder, and we clung to each other, sobbing, the fear, anger, and heartbreak we’d been holding back finally pouring out.

We had married men we thought would be our protectors. Instead, they had become the source of our deepest pain.

I remember when I first married Caspian. Every socialite in New York envied us.

"Two sisters marrying two brothers, it's a storybook romance," they’d say.

"The perfect union to solidify the Hawthorne family's position."

I remembered Caspian’s vows, the sparkle in his eyes as he placed the ring on my finger. I thought it was love. Sterling had looked at Scarlett with that same devotion. We believed these powerful men would cherish and protect us forever.

But that perfect bubble burst three months ago, when their stepsister, Vivienne, returned to the Hawthorne estate, pregnant with a child from an unknown father.