Rise of the Formidable Ex-wife (Lucia and Alex) novel Chapter 341

Chapter 341

The surgeon came through the doors still wearing his cap.

He was walking, not running, which was the first thing Lucia noticed. She had been watching those doors for so long that she had developed a theory about what running meant versus walking, and walking was something she was trying to read the meaning of when he stopped in front of them.

Everyone was on their feet.

Alexander stepped forward.

“My son,” he said.

The surgeon took one slow breath.

“Lucas is alive,” he said.

The waiting area made a sound. Not individual sounds from individual people. One collective sound, the sound of air leaving a space that had been holding it.

“But his condition is critical,” the surgeon said.

The relief that had been there for three seconds packed away again.

The surgeon explained. The injury had caused significant internal bleeding. The surgery had addressed the most urgent damage, but Lucas had lost a dangerous amount of blood and the surgery could not safely continue without an immediate transfusion.

The blood type was the problem.

Rh–negative. Uncommon. The hospital had some units in storage but not enough for what Lucas currently needed, and contacting external blood banks would take time they did not have.

Lucia was in front of him before he finished.

“Take mine,” she said.

The surgeon shook his head.

“We checked your records from your prenatal file when the ambulance called ahead. Your blood type isn’t compatible.”

Lucia’s hands went flat against the front of her own coat as though she could physically contain what she felt about being unable to give her son the one thing he needed from her.

Ria stepped forward.

“Mine is,” she said.

The surgeon looked at her.

“Lucas and I have the same blood type,” Ria said. “We found out together during a health screening two years ago.”

Monica stepped forward immediately beside her.

“Mine too,” she said.

She did not know for certain. She had known her blood type since she was twelve. She had always assumed it matched Ria’s

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because that was what she had always assumed. She said it because her brother was in a room behind those doors and she would say anything that could help.

Lena looked between them with the expression of someone who had determined exactly which kind of helplessness this was and found it unbearable.

Alexander raised his hand.

“No,” he said.

Both girls turned toward him.

“Dad…” Ria started.

“You’re teenagers,” he said. “Both of you.”

“Lucas is dying,” Monica said.

He knelt in front of them. Not the distance of an adult addressing younger people. Level with them.

“I know,” he said. His voice was the quietest version of itself. “I know exactly what is happening to him. And if there is another way, I am taking it.” He looked at Monica’s face and then Ria’s. “Let me look for it first.”

He stood.

He turned to the surgeon.

“I’m Rh–negative,” he said.

The surgeon looked at him.

“You’re certain of that?”

“I’m certain,” Alexander said.

A nurse was already moving, already calling up records, already checking the file that his assistant had ensured was at the hospital since Alexander had been put into the database as an emergency contact for every member of the family months before this night.

She came back.

She nodded.

“He’s compatible,” she said.

Lucia was looking at Alexander.

He had not known what she was going to feel when she looked at him in that moment. He had not been thinking about what

she would feel. He had been thinking about a sixteen–year–old boy in a room behind a set of doors.

“You’ll do it,” she said. Not a question. Just the confirmation of something she was still processing.

He looked at her.

“He’s my son,” he said.

Three words. That was all. That was the whole of the explanation.

Latcia’s eyes went. She put her hand against his face and he covered it with his and she said “thank you” and he gently

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removed her hand and held it.

“Don’t thank me,” he said. “Just pray he keeps fighting.”

He went with the nurse.

The doors closed.

Lucia stood where he had been.

She watched the doors for a moment.

Then Monica was beside her, and Ria on the other side, and Lena took her hand, and the four of them sat in the waiting area as the clock on the wall became the loudest thing in the room.

Ten minutes.

Thirty.

Forty–five.

An hour.

The waiting area had its own quality of time, the specific heaviness of time that was full of the same unanswerable question stretched across each minute. Lucia kept her eyes on the operating room doors. Monica prayed in the specific way she had been praying since they arrived. Ria paced the length of the waiting area. Lena sat completely still with her hands folded.

Nobody spoke much.

Nobody wanted the coffee that had been brought and gone cold.

Every time the operating room doors opened, all of them were on their feet before they had decided to stand. Every time it was not the surgeon, they sat again.

Alexander came back after nearly ninety minutes.

He was walking with the careful steadiness of someone whose body was managing less than it was pretending to manage. His face had gone a different color from usual, the particular pallor that came after giving a significant amount of blood, and he was moving more slowly than he naturally moved.

Lucia was beside him before he reached the waiting area chairs.

She took his arm.

“Sit down,” she said.

“I’m alright,” he said.

She guided him to a chair.

He sat.

He did not argue.

Monica went to him immediately. She did not ask permission. She knelt beside the chair and took his hand in both of hers.

Thank you,” she said.

He looked at her face and something in his own face did the thing it did when something reached him properly, and he

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brushed her hair back from her face with his free hand.

“You don’t thank a father for protecting his child,” he said.

Ria looked at the window.

Lena pressed her lips together and looked at the ceiling briefly.

Lucia sat beside Alexander and held his hand and the waiting room went on.

The assistant arrived at close to nine in the evening.

Alexander was on his feet before the man reached him.

“Tell me,” he said.

The assistant lowered his voice.

“The CCTV system at the front of the estate was compromised,” he said. “Every camera facing the gate stopped recording seventeen minutes before Lucas was hit. The feed doesn’t drop. It loops. Someone with access to the security system was running a clean loop while the cameras appeared functional.”

The waiting room went very still.

“The SUV,” Alexander said.

“Traced and recovered. Abandoned at a warehouse near the industrial district. No fingerprints. No personal items. The plates were fabricated, matched to a different vehicle registered to someone who has not owned a car in four years. The SUV itself was stolen from a car park in another district eight days ago.”

Alexander’s jaw worked.

“Professional,” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

Alexander looked at the far wall for a moment.

Then his voice went to the temperature it went to when he was not feeling anything generalized but was feeling something very specific about what needed to happen next.

“The driver,” he said. “The person who arranged the vehicle. The person who paid them. The person who gave the final instruction. I want every name. I don’t care about the cost and I don’t care about the time.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ruth,” Alexander said.

“Still at the mansion. Her room, since the ambulance left.”

Alexander looked at Lucia.

Lucia met his eyes.

‘She doesn’t leave our sight,” Lucia said. “Twenty–four hours. Every movement.”

Alexander looked at the assistant.

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