His words wrenched Madeline back to that wreckage of a fight a year ago—no dignity left for either of them, just hysteria laid bare.

“When you’re pregnant, when that child is born—only then will I divorce you. Until you settle this debt—”

Sebastian adjusted his glasses, his smile curling with a flirt’s finesse, dangerous and deliberate.

“Madeline, you dreaming of running away? Keep dreaming.”

And with that, he walked out.

Madeline sank against the back of the chair, her chest tight, her mind a storm of old wounds bursting open.

Last night, overhearing the gossip between those two younger nurses, she’d pieced it together. The trigger was predictable: the words, “secretly got pregnant and secretly had an abortion.” She hadn’t even needed to hear the rest. She’d watched the storm brew in slow motion over a year’s span, swirling around something neither of them could let go.

Turning away from the memory, her hand moved—unbidden—to her stomach. Her lips twitched, somewhere between irony and anguish.

She owed him a child… How absurd. She couldn’t stop the bitter laugh from escaping under her breath.

What a masterful victim he made.

*****

It was a clinic day for Madeline.

As the head of cardiac surgery at Northia Hospital, she carried a title few her age could credibly claim. But Madeline wasn’t just anyone. She was prodigious, armed with degrees from one of the world’s finest medical schools, and had been courted back to Northia with a personal invitation from the hospital’s director—who promised a salary that left even her peers envious.

In her years at Northia, she had silenced skeptics with the precision of her scalpel, her reputation solidified as the hospital’s “queen of hearts.”

Her consulting room was singularly her own, undisturbed and crisp. Settling onto the chair in her spotless lab coat, she pressed the buzzer to call forward her first patient.

The automated voice announced: “Patient 001, please proceed to Room B1.”

Madeline scanned the patient file loading on her computer screen, prepared herself briefly, and then glanced up as the door opened.

A girl walked in—a young woman, really, no more than twenty. She wore a low-cut dress entirely inappropriate for her age or, frankly, for the occasion. Madeline paused at the sight, her gaze lingering. Something about the girl’s face nudged recognition, though it slipped through her grasp like smoke.

“I don’t see any prior medical records for you. Is this your first visit? What seems to be the issue?”

The girl slouched into the chair opposite Madeline, folding one leg over the other with deliberate nonchalance, her confidence both absurd and almost theatrical.

“I’m pregnant.” The words were a taunt, laced with something far too personal for the sterile air of the clinic.

Madeline’s brow furrowed. “I’m sorry?”

“It’s Sebby’s child.” Her lips curled like a cat who’d backed its prey into a corner.

Madeline froze, and comprehension struck like a slap. No wonder there was something familiar about her. This was the girl from the bar—the one caught on a grainy surveillance screen planting a kiss on Sebastian’s cheek.

The makeup then had been heavier, garish enough to camouflage her youth. Without it, she looked younger. Definitely not the femme fatale Sebastian’s usual entanglements fancied themselves as.

Madeline’s expression flattened. Calm, professional, she delivered the line with barely a ripple of response. “If you’re pregnant, you need to consult Obstetrics. This is Cardiology. Congratulations—you’ve wasted an appointment.”

The girl didn’t flinch. Instead, she burst out laughing, pure cheap theatrics. “Come on, Dr. Smith. You and I both know why I’m here. I’m carrying Sebby’s baby, and I’ll tell you what—it’s time you stepped aside, don’t you think?”

Stepped aside.

Madeline twirled the pen in her fingers, her face betraying no reaction. Sebastian’s long-term mistress on Cloverfield Lane had never dared fling this kind of raw arrogance in her face. This fourth-rate aspiring replacement, though—brazen.

Clearly, Sebastian had emboldened her.

Without another word, Madeline picked up the intercom phone. “Dr. Campbell? I need a slot now. Administer a vacuum aspiration procedure. The patient’s name is Scarlett Stewart.”

Scarlett’s complexion drained, panic exploding across features that crumbled from bravado into the raw fragility of her inexperience. She shot to her feet, voice climbing into a screech. “Madeline! What are you doing? You can’t—it’s murder, it’s my child—Sebby won’t let you—”

“You’ll need additional staff,” Madeline said into the mic. “Two strong nurses. Patient might resist.”

The girl’s voice pitched higher, hysteric. “You bitch! Madeline, you think you’re untouchable, but everybody knows how you trapped him. You’re nothing but a selfish, conniving—”

Madeline unscrewed the lid of her thermos, pouring tea with the deliberate patience of an indifferent host. “How, exactly, did I ‘trap’ him?”

“Don’t act coy!” Scarlett screeched, chest heaving. The revelation spilled out with venomous glee: “You had your mother cozy up to Madam Turner! You wormed your way into that house because you’re a pathetic parasite—and let’s not forget, you killed your own parents, didn’t you? You’re a curse, you witch—Sebby should’ve never been forced to marry you!”

Madeline sipped her tea and set the cup down, unfazed. Her brows lifted almost admiringly. “You’ve got quite the script. Sebastian must’ve walked you through it himself.”

Still trembling with rage, Scarlett snarled. “I won’t let you ruin Sebby’s life any longer!”

Madeline’s gaze drifted down to the girl’s stomach. A slow smile curled at the corner of her lips, unhurried but sharp. Her tone turned smooth, almost cordial. “If you’re really this desperate, I may be able to help.”

Scarlett faltered, confusion dawning slow. “Help with what?”

Madeline turned to the two nurses standing by. “Take her down to Obstetrics for Dr. Campbell. She knows what to do.”

They advanced. Scarlett struggled in vain, screaming obscenities as the door shut behind her. The room fell silent.

Madeline dialed Sebastian.

The first call went unanswered. She redialed.

This time, he picked up, his voice layered with disinterest. “I’m in a meeting. Three minutes.”

“Your latest toy came to the hospital making a scene. Interfered with my work. Collect her. Soon. Or, I can’t promise what’ll happen next.”

With that, she ended the call. Thirty seconds.

When Sebastian arrived an hour later, his tie discarded and the top two buttons of his shirt carelessly undone, he strolled in with all the insouciance of a man born immune to consequence. He settled into the chair opposite her, radiating a heat she instinctively leaned back from.

“She says she’s pregnant,” Madeline informed him coolly. Her voice, clinical. Her gaze, unwavering. “Says it’s your child.”

Sebastian’s face betrayed nothing, the gleam of his glasses erasing any hint of reaction. She couldn’t tell if this was news to him—or if he already knew exactly what she was dealing with.

“She’s in my custody now.”

For the first time, intrigue flickered across his features. “You locked her up? Didn’t think you had it in you, Dr. Smith.”

Madeline arched a brow. “What I have—and don’t have—would surprise you, Mr. Turner.” She leaned forward slightly, her voice dropping, low but unshakeable. “I’m offering a trade.”

Sebastian smirked, but the amusement didn’t reach his eyes. He tilted his head, as if humoring her. “Do you have any idea how much the deal I signed fifteen minutes ago is worth? You’re stepping into an arena out of your depth, darling.”

“Your mistress is on an operating table as we speak,” Madeline countered. “I can keep the child. Even tell the world it’s mine. It’ll have your name, legitimacy, a future.” She let the proposal hang, her lips curling faintly in mockery. “In return, consider this my last debt repaid. We divorce. Clean slate.”

For a heartbeat, something darker flashed behind his glasses—a shadow that moved too quickly to catch. But just as swiftly as it appeared, it dissipated, replaced with a veneer of calm.

“Well,” Sebastian drawled, the faintest curve to his mouth an unpredictable thing. “Didn’t peg you for a mathematician, Dr. Smith. Your talent for creative bartering is impressive.”

Madeline rose, checking her watch with deliberate ease, not bothering to decipher whatever chess game he thought he was playing. “Take your time. But not too much. Scarlett’s fate—your child’s fate—rests entirely on what answer you give me.”