Chapter 95

~ Franklin ~

The limo hadn’t even come to a complete halt before I was out the door. I didn’t wait for Walter to kill the engine; I simply ran.

The sliding glass doors hissed open, admitting me into a world of clinical white light, the sharp tang of antiseptic, and the low, frantic hum of a city’s collective trauma. I ignored the triage line, as I reached the high granite counter of the reception desk.

"Octavia Herman," I said. My voice was a jagged blade, cutting through the receptionist’s routine. "She was just brought in. Stairwell accident. Where is she?"

The nurse behind the desk, a woman whose face was etched with the weariness of a double shift, looked up.

Her professional mask faltered for a fraction of a second as she took in my disheveled hair, the expensive suit, and the raw, predatory desperation in my eyes.

"Are you immediate family, sir?" she asked, her fingers already hovering over the keyboard.

"I’m her husband," I snapped. The word husband felt heavy, a title I had nearly forfeited, but in this sterile hallway, it was the only key I had.

She typed rapidly, the rhythmic clicking of the keys sounding like a countdown in my ears.

"Yes. Octavia Herman. Admitted through the ER four minutes ago. She’s being stabilized in the trauma bay."

My chest constricted, my lungs suddenly too small for the air in the room. "Stabilized? What does that mean? How is she?"

"She is currently being attended to by the on-call trauma team," the nurse replied, her voice maddeningly neutral. She had seen a thousand men like me—men who thought their money or their names could bargain with a medical crisis. "You need to head through those double doors to the emergency unit. A doctor will be out to update the family as soon as there is a change in status."

"Which way?" I demanded.

She pointed toward a set of reinforced swinging doors.

"Straight down, take your first left. You’ll see the surgical consult area."

"Thank you," I grunted, already moving.

Every step felt like wading through deep water. The hallway seemed to stretch, the fluorescent lights overhead flickering with a rhythmic pulse that matched the thudding of my heart. By the time I reached the emergency unit, my patience had been incinerated by adrenaline. I pushed through the doors, nearly colliding with a young orderly.

"Nurse!" I called out, my voice echoing off the tiled walls, sharper and louder than I intended. "Octavia Herman. Tell me where she is."

A charge nurse turned immediately, her brow furrowed. "Sir, you can’t be back here. This is a restricted..."

"I’m not interested in the rules," I snarled, stepping into her personal space. "My wife is in this unit. Tell me where she is, or I’ll start opening every door until I find her."

She studied me for a beat, recognizing the look of a man on the verge of a violent breakdown. She gave a small, curt nod. "This way. Room four."

I followed her, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. The sounds of the ER—the beeping of monitors, the distant groan of a patient, the frantic whispers of the staff—all faded into a dull roar in my ears.

"She is currently unconscious," the nurse explained as we hurried down the cramped corridor. "The initial assessment shows a significant fall. The doctors are checking for a traumatic brain injury, as well as potential internal bleeding and fractures. She hit the concrete hard, Mr. Flemington."

Each word hit me like a physical blow to the gut. Unconscious. Brain injury. Hit the concrete hard. My fists clenched so tight my nails bit into my palms, but I didn’t feel the pain. I only felt the cold, suffocating fear that I was about to lose the only thing that actually mattered in my hollowed-out life.

The nurse stopped in front of a glass-paneled door and slid it open. "She’s here."

For a single, agonizing second, I hesitated. My hand hovered over the doorframe, my breath hitching in my throat. I was terrified of what I was about to see. Then, I forced myself across the threshold.

The room was small and crowded with machines. And there, in the center of the mechanical chaos, was Octavia.

She looked so small. That was the first thing that struck me—how fragile she appeared beneath the thin hospital sheet. She was lying perfectly still, her face the color of bleached bone. A thick white bandage was wrapped around her head, and a neck brace held her jaw in a rigid, unnatural position. Blue and red wires snaked out from beneath her gown, connecting her to a monitor that pulsed with a steady, haunting ping.

"Octavia," I whispered.

The silence that followed was deafening. There was no flicker of her eyelids, no shift in her expression. She looked like a marble statue of herself—cold, distant, and heartbreakingly beautiful. I stepped closer, my movements slow and deliberate, as if moving too fast might shatter the fragile hold she had on life.

My jaw tightened as my eyes scanned her. I saw the dark, blooming bruise on her temple, the dried blood at the corner of her mouth, and the small, jagged scrapes on her knuckles.

Anger, cold and sharp, began to rise through the grief. This wasn’t a simple trip. This wasn’t "carelessness." My wife was a woman of grace; she didn’t just tumble down a flight of stairs on the most important day of her career.

I looked at her pale lips, the woman who had slapped me just days ago with such fire in her soul, now reduced to a rhythmic pulse on a screen.

The guilt I’d been carrying since the Madison Square Garden incident morphed into a protective, jagged rage.

I turned back to the nurse, who was checking the IV drip.

"I need to see the doctor," I said, my voice vibrating with a suppressed violence.

"Now."

"The doctor will be in to see you shortly, sir. He’s reviewing the CT scans—"

"I don’t think you heard me," I said, stepping toward her. "My wife didn’t just fall. People don’t just fall down three flights of stairs in a secure office building. I want answers about her condition, and I want them from the person in charge."

The nurse swallowed hard, nodding quickly. "I’ll fetch Dr. Aris. His office is just at the end of the hall. He can go over the initial findings with you."

"Lead the way then," I commanded.

As I followed her out of the room, I took one last look over my shoulder at Octavia.

If someone had done this to her—if this wasn’t an accident—I wouldn’t just find them. I would dismantle their life piece by piece until there was nothing left but dust. I walked down the hall toward the doctor’s office, the PI’s earlier call echoing in the back of my mind.

The name. The investigator had a name.

And suddenly, I realized the two things might not be a coincidence at all.