Chapter 72

At three in the morning, Joy Fairsprene rushed down the hospital corridor in her high heels.

The red emergency light burned her eyes.

Adrian Roland slumped against the wall, his suit wrinkled like a rag, his tie hanging loose around his neck.

Slap!

Her palm struck his face.

"If anything happens to Stella, I swear I'll make you pay!" Joy's voice trembled.

Adrian slowly lifted his head, his eyes bloodshot. "What's wrong with her?"

"Now you care?" Joy sneered. "She just had surgery three days ago. Her wounds haven't even healed, and you made her stand in the rain in the middle of the night?"

Adrian staggered to his feet, bracing himself against the wall.

Surgery? What surgery?

He remembered Stella's pale lips, the way she always unconsciously pressed a hand to her chest.

"Appendicitis?" he muttered.

"Bullshit!" Joy's eyes reddened. "There's a ten-centimeter scar on her chest. Since when does appendicitis require open-heart surgery?"

The emergency room doors swung open.

A masked doctor held up bloodstained gloves. "Next of kin, please sign."

Adrian lunged forward. "I'm her husband."

The doctor frowned at him. "The patient underwent a major lung resection. She now has a severe infection. This is a critical condition notice."

"Lung resection?!" Adrian's voice cracked.

"You didn't know?" The doctor's gaze sharpened. "Only one-third of her left lung remains. The cancer may have metastasized."

Joy's legs gave out as she leaned against the wall.

"Impossible..." Adrian stared at the notice, his hand shaking too violently to sign.

The doctor sighed. "She's been on high-dose painkillers long-term. Her pain levels were at least an eight on the scale. To function normally under that kind of suffering..."

Before he could finish, Adrian slammed his fist into the wall.

Blood seeped from his knuckles, but he felt nothing.

Level eight pain—three times worse than childbirth.

And yet Stella had smiled at him every day, cooked his meals, even...

His phone buzzed.

Vincent Astor's voice came through the receiver. "Mr. Roland, we found the package Stella sent to the U.S. a year ago. It's a video for the child."

Stella's gentle voice echoed through the emergency ward:

"Wait for Mommy, sweetheart... I found a way to save you..."

"I'll bring Daddy to see you..."

Adrian collapsed to his knees, his forehead pressed against the cold tiles.

Finally, he understood.

The bloodstains on the sheets that night weren't from reconstructive surgery.

Stella had just undergone a lung resection, enduring unbearable pain while waiting for him to come home.

And he had walked away without looking back.