He Arrived with Divorce Papers, but Heard One Word in the Delivery Room and Lucian Lost Color

At the moment Lucian Avery went up the stairs, his wife screamed with such pain that the divorce papers clutched in his hand fell onto the floor.

This was not the meeting he had rehearsed twice in the car. He was supposed to enter the Hawthorn-Ridge house, place the papers on the table, and calmly say that Catherine would keep the house, the money, and her freedom. He would end seven months of silence with one signature.

But now another scream came down from above.

“Where is Katie?” he roared.

A young housekeeper, with clean towels in her hands, rushed into the foyer.

“She is in the bedroom. The ambulance is on the way.”

“Why?”

The woman did not have time to answer. Lucian had already rushed toward the stairs.

On the second floor, he found the room door open. Catherine lay on the bed, her brown hair wet with sweat and stuck to her cheeks, while her fingers gripped the white sheet as if asking it for life. Beside her, a gray-haired midwife was opening a medical bag.

“Who are you?” Lucian asked sternly.

“Miriam Hale. Midwife. If you are her husband, either help me or get out of the way.”

Lucian’s gaze fell on the bloody sheet.

“What is happening?”

“Premature labor. The ambulance cannot come; a tree has fallen near the old mill.”

He looked at Catherine’s belly, and for several seconds his mind refused to acknowledge what he was seeing.

“How many weeks?” he barely managed to say.

Miriam looked him directly in the eyes.

“Twenty-nine.”

Everything in the room stopped.

Lucian remembered that night, seven months earlier, when, before flying to Europe, they had removed the walls they had built between them for the first and last time. Catherine, covered in stone dust, rushed into his office and told him that she was a wife, not his property. He became angry. Catherine shouted. Then, for the first time, they both spoke honestly.

And in the morning Lucian, frightened, locked everything up again. He ordered the security people to watch her, talked about cameras, and boarded the plane.

Two weeks later, half of her things were gone from the house.

Catherine did not answer the letters or calls. Lucian told himself that she regretted it. That the night had been a mistake. And today he had come with the papers so that this pain would end for both of them.

But now Catherine was looking at him with eyes that held more than pain.

Her gaze moved to the leather bag lying in the corridor. A corner of a cream-colored document showed from the bag.

“You brought the papers,” she whispered.

“Kate, listen to me…”

“You wanted a divorce.”

The next contraction bent her body. Miriam handed Lucian a metal bowl.

“You will continue this conversation later. The baby is coming eleven weeks early.”

Catherine closed her eyes.

“He is very small.”

Lucian caught the word immediately.

“He?”

Tears appeared in Catherine’s eyes. Miriam took Lucian’s coat off him and removed his wristwatch as well.

“Sit behind her. Support her shoulders.”

“No,” Catherine said.

“The ambulance has not arrived yet, dear,” Miriam told her. “We need a second pair of hands now.”

Lucian stood motionless. For years, people had obeyed his decisions, companies had collapsed, and enemies had disappeared. But he had never imagined that placing his hands on a woman’s shoulders would frighten him most of all.

“What should I do?” he asked.

“Listen.”

He wrapped his hands around Catherine’s shoulders. When the next wave came, Catherine gripped his arm so hard that her fingernails cut his skin.

“I’m sorry,” she groaned.

“Don’t apologize.”

The telephone rang in the corridor. Miriam looked at the screen, her face changed, and she suddenly addressed Lucian:

“Tell your men to lock the back gate. Now…”

Lucian turned his head, but Miriam had already reached for a small folder hidden under the bed…

…Miriam opened the folder, but she did not let Lucian see the papers inside.

“Who called you?” he asked.

“No one who should be calling here,” the woman answered.

Catherine tightened her fingers around Lucian’s hand.

“Miriam, stop hiding it.”

“The baby must be born first.”

A heavy sound came from below the stairs. Someone closed the entrance door.

Lucian changed immediately. He became the man whom, in the city, people mentioned only by a quiet name. He picked up the telephone and called one number.

“Check every person who entered the house. Now.”

Catherine opened her eyes.

“Is this the protection you told me was for me?”

“Let’s not talk about this now.”

“No, we have to talk now. Before the baby is born, it may already be too late.”

Miriam hugged the folder to her chest.

“Catherine knows who followed her during that last month. She knows why she left the house and why she did not answer you.”

Lucian looked at Catherine.

“Were you in danger?”

“Not me. You.”

The sound of breaking glass came from below. Then an unfamiliar man shouted:

“Lucian Avery! You must leave the baby for us!”

Catherine’s face went pale.

Miriam took the first sheet from the folder and handed it to Lucian.

“If you want both of you to survive, you must know now whose voice this belongs to…”

…Lucian took the sheet. On it was written a name that only one person could threaten him more than himself.

“This is impossible,” he said.

The footsteps on the stairs quickened. Lucian stood in front of Catherine’s bed and drew a gun, but Miriam immediately shouted at him:

“Put the gun down! Because of the baby!”

The door shook violently.

Catherine looked at Lucian.

“Will you listen to me now, at least?”

“Tell me who this is.”

“Your brother, Edgar.”

Lucian’s finger froze on the trigger.

“Edgar has been dead for seven years.”

“They faked his death,” Miriam said. “And I am saying this because I was there that night too.”

Catherine breathed heavily. Another contraction began, and she clutched Lucian’s hands.

“I learned that your brother was alive when I was checking the old medical laboratory documents in your company. In my restoration-work project, I accidentally found a hidden room. There were records, transfers, and videos there.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because your telephone was being tapped. And because two men followed my car that same day.”

Miriam took out a second sheet.

“This is a recording Catherine left with me. It is her voice, her date, and her signature.”

She switched on a small recorder. Catherine’s quiet, frightened voice sounded in the room:

“If Lucian returns and I cannot tell him the truth, tell him that his brother is waiting for the baby to be born. He needs an heir in order to seize control of the Averys’ rule.”

Lucian’s face froze.

“The baby is the heir?”

“That is what they call him in your family,” Catherine answered. “For me, he is simply our son.”

This time the door opened. The man who rushed in shot at Lucian, but the bullet struck the doorframe. Lucian’s security brought him down in an instant.

The second man raised his hands.

“Edgar is waiting for you downstairs.”

Lucian grabbed the stranger by the collar.

“Where is he?”

“In the old chapel. He said you would bring yourself to him.”

At that moment Catherine screamed in pain. Miriam looked sternly at Lucian.

“You cannot follow your brother now. The baby is being born.”

Lucian returned to Catherine. His fear was no longer hidden.

“I am here.”

“Don’t leave this time.”

“I won’t.”

A few minutes later, the weak cry of a baby sounded in the room. Miriam wrapped a tiny boy in a warm towel and showed him to Lucian for only one second.

“He is breathing, but he must go to the hospital immediately.”

Lucian touched his son’s tiny hand with his finger. The boy gripped it so weakly, as if clinging to that touch with all his strength.

Then his telephone rang. An unknown number was on the screen.

“Answer it,” Catherine whispered.

Lucian accepted the call.

From the other side, a man said calmly:

“If you want your son to reach the hospital alive, come alone to the old chapel. And, Lucian, you still do not know who hid those papers from you…”

The call ended, and Lucian looked at the photograph hanging on the wall. In the photograph, his deceased father stood together with Edgar…