Chapter 2 - The Twenty-Minute Mistake
While I was recovering in an impenetrable fortress surrounded by armed guards and elite doctors, Daniel was discovering the catastrophic consequences of his twenty-minute mistake.
It was 3:00 AM when Daniel finally strolled back into Mercy Ridge Medical Center. He was impeccably dressed, smelling faintly of Vivian’s expensive perfume and expensive bourbon. He walked with the arrogant swagger of a man who believed his wife would be weeping in a hospital bed, desperately waiting for him to offer a half-hearted apology so they could return to the status quo.
He marched up to the trauma ward reception desk. "My wife, Lucy Morgan. Which room did you move her to?"
Marilyn, the charge nurse who had watched him abandon me, looked up from her charts. Her eyes held nothing but profound, unfiltered disgust. "Mrs. Morgan is no longer a patient at this facility, sir."
Daniel frowned, his annoyance flaring. "What do you mean she isn't a patient? She was hemorrhaging! Did you transfer her to maternity?"
"She has been permanently discharged and relocated by her legal representatives," a smooth, sharp voice echoed through the waiting room.
Daniel turned around. Gerald Whitmore, my father’s lead attorney and a man deeply feared in Chicago’s legal circles, was standing near the elevators holding a leather briefcase.
"Gerald?" Daniel scoffed, taking a step forward. "What the hell are you doing here? Where is my wife? And where is my child?"
"Your child is safely in the custody of her mother," Gerald stated coldly, stepping forward to hand Daniel a thick stack of legal documents. "As for your wife, she is entirely inaccessible to you. You are being officially served, Daniel."
Daniel looked at the papers, his face draining of color. "Served? What is this?"
"That is a formal petition for divorce, filed under extreme fault," Gerald explained. "Attached is a restraining order preventing you from coming within five hundred yards of Lucia Thorne or her daughter. You will also notice a formal revocation of your medical proxy, and a legal notification that the silent capital backing Morgan Logistics is being immediately audited."
"Lucia Thorne?" Daniel spat, his panic morphing into defensive rage. "She uses my last name! She is Lucy Morgan! You can't just steal my family, Gerald! I'm the CEO of a multi-million dollar company! I have politicians on my payroll!"
"You have absolutely nothing, Daniel," Gerald replied, his voice a lethal whisper. "You abandoned a dying woman to drink champagne with your mistress. You thought your wife was a fragile, dependent little bird. You conveniently forgot that the cage you kept her in was built and paid for by her father."
"Elias?" Daniel choked out, genuine terror finally piercing his arrogant facade. "Elias doesn't get involved in our marriage. He promised!"
"Elias Thorne promised to let you live as long as you treated his daughter like a queen," Gerald corrected smoothly. "You treated her like garbage. I suggest you call your accountants, Daniel. The sun is coming up, and your empire is about to burn to the ground."
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Gerald turned and walked out of the hospital, leaving Daniel Morgan standing completely alone in the fluorescent-lit hallway, holding divorce papers in one hand and the chilling realization of his own absolute destruction in the other. He pulled out his phone and frantically dialed Vivian’s number.
It went straight to voicemail. The rats were already fleeing the sinking ship.
