Please Come Back, My Love Chapter 259

Luca's POV

The blood hit me first.

Not the sight of Sophia's crumpled body on the landing, not Claire's carefully arranged shock in the doorway above—but the smell. Copper and salt, thick enough to taste, spreading in a dark pool beneath Sophia's motionless form like spilled wine on concrete.

My brain refused to process it. Refused to connect that broken thing on the stairs with the woman who'd been alive, furious, pregnant just hours ago.

Then I saw her hand—still curved protectively over her stomach even in unconsciousness—and something inside me shattered.

"Lucas, I can explain—" Claire's voice cut through the roaring in my ears.

I shoved past her without a word, taking the stairs three at a time. My knees hit concrete hard enough to send pain shooting up my thighs, but I barely felt it. All I could see was Sophia's face, chalk-white beneath the fluorescent lights, her lips tinged blue.

"Sophia." My hands shook as I pressed two fingers to her throat, searching for a pulse. For a heartbeat. For any sign she was still—

"I need a doctor! NOW!" The words tore out of me, raw and desperate. A nurse appeared at the top of the stairs, took one look at the scene, and immediately hit the emergency call button on the wall.

Within seconds, I could hear the overhead intercom crackling to life—"Code Blue, stairwell C, fourth floor. Code Blue, stairwell C, fourth floor."

I slid one arm beneath Sophia's shoulders, the other under her knees, lifting her as carefully as I could. Her head lolled against my chest, and I felt something wet and warm soaking through my shirt. More blood. *Christ*, how much blood could one person lose?

"Don't you fucking die on me," I whispered against her hair. "Don't you dare."

Her eyelids didn't even flutter.

I turned toward the stairs, toward help, toward anything that might save her—and found Claire blocking my path.

"Lucas, please, you have to listen—"

"Get out of my way." My voice came out flat. Dead. I didn't recognize it as my own.

"It was an accident! She grabbed me and we both fell—"

"I said get out of my way." I took a step forward, and she stumbled back, her eyes going wide.

I brushed past her, close enough that my shoulder caught hers and sent her spinning into the wall. "I told you not to come here," I said, not looking back. "I told you to stay away from her. You're looking for death, Claire."

"Lucas—" Her voice cracked, disbelief bleeding through every syllable. As if she couldn't comprehend that I was speaking to her this way. As if seven years of gratitude and guilt had bought her immunity from consequences.

She lunged forward, her fingers closing around my arm. "I swear, I didn't mean for this to—"

I jerked away with enough force to send her stumbling backward. "Is it because I was too lenient with you?" The words came out cold, surgical. "Did you think my warnings were just noise? Don't mistake me for a fool, Claire."

A crash team burst through the stairwell doors—three doctors and two nurses with a gurney rattling between them.

I laid Sophia down as gently as I could, my hands coming away slick with her blood.

One of the doctors—a woman with gray-streaked hair and steady hands—immediately began checking vitals while a nurse secured Sophia's neck with a brace.

"Pulse is weak, respiration shallow. Significant blood loss, appears to be vaginal bleeding." The doctor's voice was clipped, professional. "Possible placental abruption. We need to get her to the OR now."

Placental abruption.

The words punched through my chest like a bullet.

The baby.

"Sir, are you family?" One of the nurses was looking at me, waiting for an answer I couldn't give.

"I'm—" The words stuck in my throat. What was I? The man who'd failed to protect her? The father of the child she might be losing right now? "Yes. I'm family."

"Then you need to step back and let us work."

I forced myself to release the gurney rail, my fingers leaving bloody prints on the metal. They wheeled her toward the elevator, moving with practiced urgency, and I followed like a ghost, my legs operating on autopilot.

Behind me, I heard Claire's voice, thin and desperate: "Lucas, please—"

I didn't turn around.

---

The emergency room was a blur of fluorescent lights and antiseptic smell, doctors and nurses moving with choreographed precision around Sophia's broken body. They cut away her clothes with scissors, revealing the full extent of the damage—bruises already blooming purple across her ribs, her left arm bent at an angle that made my stomach turn.

But it was the blood between her legs that held my attention. So much blood, soaking through the sheets, pooling on the floor beneath the gurney.

"We need to get her to surgery," a doctor was saying—Dr. Morrison, according to his name tag. "Possible internal bleeding, suspected placental abruption, multiple fractures—"

"The baby." My voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. Someone hollow. "Is the baby—"

Dr. Morrison's expression shifted, professional sympathy replacing clinical detachment. "We won't know until we get her stabilized. Right now, my priority is keeping your—" He glanced at my left hand, then said, "—keeping Miss Cruz alive."

They wheeled her through a set of double doors marked SURGICAL WING - AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. A nurse—young, with kind eyes—gently guided me toward a waiting area.

"We'll update you as soon as we know anything," she said. "There's coffee over there, and—"

"I'm not leaving."

"Sir, you can't go into the OR—"

"I'm. Not. Leaving." I sank into the nearest chair, my legs finally giving out. "I'll wait here. But I'm not leaving this floor."

She studied my face for a moment, then nodded. "I'll bring you some water."

Time stopped meaning anything.