Chapter 7
The next second, the white marble statue crashed to the ground and shattered into pieces.
Shards of stone flew everywhere. One piece sliced across Gwen's forehead, and another cut her arm.
She screamed and collapsed beside the holy water fountain.
A pool of bright red blood quickly spread beneath her.
"Gwen!" Victor immediately let go of me and ran toward her.
Outside the operating room, he paced back and forth.
Watching him, I suddenly remembered the night I was rushed in for an emergency appendectomy.
He kept vigil outside the operating room all night back then.
The door to the operating room suddenly swung open, and the doctor rushed out, still wearing his mask. "Mr. Callahan!"
His expression was grim. "The patient is bleeding, and we don't have her blood type in the blood bank. We need a donor right now."
"Take mine," Victor said without hesitation.
The doctor shook his head. "You can't help. You're AB-positive, but she's O-positive."
Victor instantly locked eyes with me.
My heart skipped a beat. I instinctively stepped back.
"I'm still sick," I said in a trembling voice.
"Evelyn!" Victor grabbed my wrist tightly. "Now wasn't the time to be selfish. She's pregnant with the Callahan heir. If anything happens to her, the Archer family won't let it slide. None of us will walk away from this. Do you understand?"
A sharp pain shot through my chest.
Was he worried about losing his chance to walk away, or was he afraid of losing Gwen and their child?
"What if I refuse?" I asked quietly, looking into his bloodshot eyes.
For a split second, a flash of anger crossed his face. "I saved you, and that's why Gwen got hurt. You should be the one lying in there. Is it really asking too much for you to give some blood?"
Then he gave me that look of disappointment. "Evelyn, how did you become this?"
My chest tightened, and tears blurred my vision.
"That's how it is," I said, swallowing hard. "You regret saving me, don't you? If you could go back in time, you'd save Gwen and your child first, wouldn't you?"
Victor was stunned. "What are you talking about?"
"We're out of time!" Before I could answer, the doctor came running over, urgency in his voice. "If we wait any longer, we might lose both the mother and the baby."
Victor's gaze turned icy in an instant. Any trace of hesitation disappeared.
He turned to the bodyguard standing nearby. "Take her to the donation room."
The bodyguard dragged me away.
They shoved me into a chair and jabbed a needle into my arm.
Slowly, my blood flowed into the collection bag.
Victor never once looked back.
When they'd drawn 14 ounces of blood, the nurse started to look worried.
She glanced at my pale face and turned to Victor. "Sir, she's really weak. If we keep taking blood, I'm afraid..."
"Keep going," Victor said, not sparing me a glance.
By the time they'd drawn 20 ounces of blood, my vision swam with black dots.
The room began to spin.
Suddenly, it was like I'd been transported somewhere else.
I was back in that cramped alley outside the chapel.
I was taken back to the day we first met. Victor was standing there, smiling at me.
"I'm Victor. I'll come back tomorrow," he said.
That was the last thing I remembered.
Then everything went dark.
When I came to my senses, Victor was sitting by my bedside.
For a fleeting moment, I foolishly believed perhaps things could go back to the way we were.
I thought he'd apologize and beg for my forgiveness.
But instead, the first thing I saw was the coldness in his eyes.
"You planned the collapse of the Virgin Mary statue, didn't you?" he asked coldly, staring at me.
My mind went blank. "What do you mean?"
"My father's investigator discovered the bolts securing the statue had been cut," Victor said, his eyes icy. "Who else would go this far to hurt her?"
A chill ran through me, and my fingers started to tremble.
Same old story. Every damn time.
"I'm saying this one last time. It wasn't me! Not this time, not the last time, not the time before that. Will you ever believe me?" I screamed the last words.