Chapter 1 Reunion in a Pool of Blood

# Chapter 1: Reunion in a Pool of Blood

I never imagined my own delivery room would become the stage for the most twisted reunion of my life.

"BP dropping to 70/40! We need more units, now!" A nurse's panicked voice pierced through my fading consciousness.

The monitors around me screamed in alarm as my vision blurred. I'd delivered hundreds of babies as an obstetrician, but never thought I'd be the one hemorrhaging on the table. The irony wasn't lost on me, even as I felt myself slipping away.

"Dr. Reynolds!" I tried to lift my head, searching for my colleague who was supposed to be delivering my baby. "The baby... is my baby okay?"

"Your daughter is fine, Dr. Carter." A nurse appeared beside me, her voice oddly calm amid the chaos. "6 pounds, 3 ounces. She's perfect."

Relief washed over me, but only briefly. Something was wrong—terribly wrong. The room had gone eerily quiet despite the frenetic activity. Faces turned toward the door as if witnessing a ghost.

"I need everyone to focus." A commanding male voice cut through the silence. "Dr. Reynolds, I'll take over. Get me two more units of O-neg and prepare for emergency surgery. She's hemorrhaging from a uterine rupture."

That voice.

A voice I'd only heard in my dreams for five years.

A voice that belonged to a dead man.

I forced my eyes to focus as the new surgeon approached my table. Tall. Confident stride. Skilled hands already gloving up. When he leaned over me, our eyes met, and the world stopped spinning.

"Evelyn," he said softly, as if we were alone in the room. "I need you to stay with me."

The surgical mask came down, and I saw a face that had haunted me for five years. The face I'd kissed goodbye in a closed casket after identifying charred remains. The face of my husband.

Declan Carter.

"No," I whispered, convinced I was hallucinating. "You're dead."

His eyes—those impossibly blue eyes I used to wake up to every morning—softened with what looked like regret.

"Not quite," he replied, turning to the team. "Let's save her life first. Explanations later."

My mind raced even as my body failed me. Declan had died in a car explosion. I'd identified his dental records. I'd scattered his ashes over the Pacific. I'd spent years in therapy trying to move on.

And yet here he was, alive and cutting into me with the precision that had made him one of Boston Memorial's top surgeons.

"You're losing too much blood," he said, his professional demeanor taking over. "I need to perform an emergency hysterectomy."

"No..." I tried to protest, but my voice was barely audible.

"Evelyn, listen to me," Declan leaned closer, his voice dropping to a whisper only I could hear. "I know you want more children, but right now, you need to live for the daughter you have. Trust me. Please."

Trust him? The man who had let me believe he was dead for five years?

But as darkness crept at the edges of my vision, I had no choice. My last conscious thought was wondering if this was some cruel joke—if death had sent my dead husband to collect me personally.

The room spun, and everything went black.

I drifted in and out of consciousness, catching snippets of conversation around me.

"Her vitals are stabilizing..."

"Two more units of blood..."

"Close the incision..."

And then, chaos erupted.

"Power's out! Generator should kick in—"

But the emergency lights never came. The room plunged into darkness, save for the dim glow of battery-operated monitors.

"Everyone stay calm," Declan's voice, steady as ever. "Phone lights. Now."

In the eerie blue glow of cellphone flashlights, I saw Declan's face, concentrated and determined. He was still operating on me, his hands never faltering despite the darkness.

"Evelyn," he said, somehow sensing I was conscious. "I need you to stay with me. Focus on my voice."

"Why... why are you here?" I managed to whisper. "How?"

"Shh. Save your strength. Hate me later." His hand found mine and squeezed. "Squeeze back if you can hear me."

I wanted to squeeze his hand until his bones broke. I wanted to scream and demand answers. But all I could manage was a weak pressure against his fingers.

"Good. Now close your eyes. I'm here. I won't let anything happen to you."

The audacity of those words after five years of absence made anger surge through me.

"You let... everything happen..." I choked out.

His eyes locked with mine in the dim light. "Evelyn, if you want to curse me, to hate me, to punch me—fine. But you need to live to do it. So fight now, and rage at me later."

Something about his words ignited a spark in me. The idea of surviving just to make him suffer for his deception gave me purpose.

When I next woke, I was in recovery. The room was quiet except for the steady beep of monitors and the soft breathing of someone beside me. I turned my head to find Declan sitting there, still in surgical scrubs, staring at a tiny bundle in his arms.

Our daughter.

"She has your eyes," he said without looking up. "And my stubbornness, apparently. Wouldn't stop crying until I held her."

"Give her to me," I demanded, my voice hoarse.

Declan carefully transferred our daughter to my arms. She was perfect—tiny fingers, button nose, and wide curious eyes. A surge of love overwhelmed me, momentarily displacing the rage I felt toward her father.

"What happened?" I asked after a moment, not looking at him. "In the operating room?"

"You had a severe postpartum hemorrhage. The uterine rupture was worse than we initially thought. I had to perform an emergency hysterectomy to save your life."

"Not that," I snapped. "Why are you alive? The funeral... the body..."

Declan ran a hand through his hair—a nervous habit I remembered all too well. "That's complicated."

"Uncomplicate it," I hissed, mindful of the sleeping baby.

"I had to disappear, Evelyn. There were people after me—after us. The only way to keep you safe was to make them believe I was dead."

"Who? What people?"

"The Donovan family."

The name sent a chill through me. Lawrence Donovan had been Declan's patient—a powerful crime boss whose son had died on Declan's operating table three years into our marriage. Donovan had threatened Declan at the funeral, but I thought it was just grief talking.

"They blamed me for their son's death," Declan continued. "They were going to come after you too. I couldn't let that happen."

"So you let me think you were dead? For five years?" My voice cracked. "Do you have any idea what that did to me?"

"Every second," he replied, his voice heavy. "I watched you grieve. It nearly killed me."

"Watched me?" A new horror dawned. "You've been spying on me?"

Before he could answer, a nurse entered the room. "Dr. Carter," she said, and we both looked up. She paused, flustered. "Um, Dr. Evelyn Carter. Your vitals look good, but you need rest. And Dr. Declan..." Her voice trailed off, as if she was still processing his miraculous return from the dead.

"Thank you, Nancy," he said. "I'll make sure she rests."

When the nurse left, I stared at him in disbelief. "She knows you? How many people were in on this charade?"

"Just essential medical staff. For your safety and care."

"My care?" I laughed bitterly. "You mean you've been here, at Boston Memorial, this entire time? While I cried myself to sleep every night?"

"Not exactly. I've been working under a different name at Mass General. I transferred here six months ago when I learned you were pregnant."

The revelation struck me like a physical blow. "How did you even know I was pregnant? I didn't tell anyone until I was four months along."

His silence was damning.

"Get out," I whispered, clutching our daughter closer. "Get out before I call security."

"Evelyn—"

"You're legally dead, Declan. You have no rights here—not to me, not to her."

A flash of pain crossed his face. "I saved your life today."

"After ruining it five years ago. Get. Out."

He stood slowly, his eyes never leaving our daughter's face. "She needs a name."

"I already chose one. Damien."

His eyebrows shot up. "That's a boy's name. And it means—"

"I know what it means," I cut him off. "It's fitting, given who her father is."

Declan reached the door but paused with his hand on the knob. "There's something you should know. The body at the funeral... it wasn't random. It was Marco Donovan—Lawrence's nephew. He came to kill you while I was at work. I got home just in time."

The room seemed to tilt around me. "You killed someone?"

"He would have killed you." Declan's voice was flat. "I'd do it again."

As he left the room, a nurse rushed in carrying my daughter's hospital bracelet. "Dr. Carter, I forgot to put this on the baby." She frowned at it. "That's strange. It already has a name engraved."

She handed it to me, and my breath caught. There, in tiny letters:

DAMON CARTER

"Welcome back, my love"

I stared at the words until they blurred through my tears, wondering just how long Declan had been planning this moment—and what else he had in store.